


Termination Shock

by Escalus



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blindness, Car Chases, Disability, Flashbacks, M/M, Major Character Injury, Non-Canonical Character Death, Pack Dynamics, Politics, Post-Canon, Sceo Week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:22:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 40,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25675027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Escalus/pseuds/Escalus
Summary: Termination Shock:The point in space where the solar wind -- the pressure generated by the sun -- is finally overwhelmed by the strength of the interstellar medium.   Often used to mark the end of our solar system.In other words, it is the point where everything you've ever known -- everything you could have possibly known -- has ended, and every step you take after that is into some vast new darkness, where the only source of light and comfort is that which you bring with you.Scott McCall, permanently blinded by his fight with the Anuk-Ite and ravaged by indescribable tragedy, embarks on a quest to stop Monroe from ruining any more lives.  He won't risk anyone else he cares about on this dangerous mission, but he can't go alone.  Who cares about Theo Raeken anyway?
Relationships: Scott McCall/Theo Raeken
Comments: 86
Kudos: 108
Collections: Sceo Week 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am greatly indebted to authors Eneiryu and Demonzdust for inspiring me with their works. Eneiryu has an interesting take on werewolf politics, and Demonzdust dragged me, kicking and screaming, into writing about this particular relationship.

Some scientists dispute the existence of the human soul. No matter how refined their instruments, it resists being measured. No matter how intricate a trap they assemble, it cannot be captured. It obeys the laws of neither matter nor energy, so it remains ineffable and unknowable to their discipline. 

As with most things that science could not recognize, the human soul was probably more trouble than it’s worth. Like werewolves.

Poets tended to deal with the departure of a soul by conjuring images of negative space. The chair that was no longer sat in. The bedroom that never again opened. The daily rituals no longer completed. Among all the tools of the artist and the writer, this one stood out to Theo as the most true.

If he needed confirmation of that, all Theo had to do was to look at the McCall House as it stood in the dying light of a November evening.

He had studied that house for months, and that was not an exaggeration. At the Doctors’ insistence, he had memorized the layout so well he could maneuver through it blindfolded. He had learned its history to the most trivial detail; he knew when it was built and who the first owner was. He had walked every single approach to it, from the street or through the yard, and he could explain without hesitation which window an observer had to be standing at in order to see an approaching figure. He remembered more about this house than he remembered about the home in which he had spent the first nine years of his life.

Someone, probably Derek Hale, had made an attempt to clean the house up. The shattered window had been removed and covered with plywood. Replacing it would have to come later. It would be the only thing out of place to humans with normal eyes and limited attention spans.

Theo, on the other hand, could see every single one of the bullet holes. 

He hesitated on the sidewalk in front of the house. He hadn’t parked in the driveway because it was full, and he didn’t want to intrude if something big was going on. The McCall family car was there, its driver’s side mirror finally fixed. Scott’s dirt bike was there; someone had covered it with a tarp. The rest of the space in the driveway was occupied by Stiles’s ancient Jeep and Liam’s slightly less ancient truck. Yet, as he studied it, the house seemed empty and sinister. It was a stark difference; before it had always been welcoming even when there were no lights on. He took one step towards the front stoop before his own anxiety froze him in his tracks.

Why had he thought coming here would be a good idea?

Because there’s nowhere else I want to go, he answered. His breath fogged in the twilight’s chill.

He forced his legs to move. He had no idea what type of reception he was going to get once he knocked. He wasn’t necessary anymore. Monroe had fled the city a month ago, driven away. She still possessed a cadre of supporters, financial backing, and a significant armory, but she would have to start being more deliberate and less reckless in her tactics with supernatural fear no longer enforcing the loyalty of her troops. The Anuk-Ite had been neutralized, encased by Stiles in mountain ash and then delivered back to its prison in the Wild Hunt by a reluctant Corey. 

The remains of the pack didn’t need any soldiers whose cooperation was the cost of war. They didn’t need any reminders of violence, treachery, or horror. They didn’t need the cunning saboteur who was the First Chimera. 

This was especially true with all the funerals that the pack had had to endure in the last few weeks, especially the last one. Theo hadn’t attended a single one of them. He didn’t think he’d be welcome. In fact, he’d probably be a distraction — something to trigger outbursts of the rage that all these broken families must be feeling. 

He had reached the front door of the McCall House and had raised his hand to knock, when he was interrupted by raised voices. The polite thing to do would have been to announce himself immediately, but he had learned the value of what other people didn’t want you to overhear, and he found those lessons hard to abandon. So, instead, he listened.

Of course, he heard Stiles’s voice first. It soared in volume, and carried with it the frustrated, demanding, entitled pitch that Theo had always found grating. As if what Stiles had to say was the only thing worth listening to in the whole world. “What the hell are you talking about? I’m not going back!”

Stiles had managed to stretch his absence from George Washington’s pre-FBI program for as long as he possibly could. Now he would have to return before Monday, or he’d lose his spot. Theo may or may not have overheard Stiles tell Derek all about it before Derek went back to South America to finish securing the Hale vault and touch base with Braeden.

“Stiles.” Scott’s voice, on the other hand, was calm but not particularly reassuring. The alpha sounded exhausted and not only physically. Of course, he would have to be after what he had gone through. He uttered his friend’s name like a plea.

“You need me here. You really think that I’d go back after everything that’s happened that I’d leave you here alone? You really think I’d do that?”

“That program is an once-in-a-lifetime chance. You won’t get another.” 

Stiles made an inarticulate warble of frustration, though he managed to produce no actual words.

Liam, who from the sound of it was in another room, muttered something under his breath. The only two words that Theo caught was “drama queen.”

“You shouldn’t throw this chance away for me.”

“How are you going to get around? How are you going to live at Davis?”

“I’m not going to Davis. And you know that.”

The noise Stiles made in the back of his throat was definitely a strangled shout of denial. Stiles could not possibly be used to this situation; he was the pessimist and it put him at a loss for words.

“Tell me how long it takes a person to learn Braille, Stiles.”

“Two to three years. Probably quicker for you; I know you can still see when you need to.”

“Stiles, I can see when I’m shifted, but I can’t attend classes like that. Even if it were somehow possible for me to get around that, while I’m using the wolf’s eyes, it’s not fine enough for reading, let alone surgery. I’m not going to be a vet. It’s not going to happen.” Scott wasn’t complaining. He was exhibiting the same quiet resolve he had for weeks.

Theo had been shocked when Liam told him how it had happened.

After that terrible night when one of Monroe’s goons had sprayed down the McCall house with an automatic weapon and killed his mother, his father, and Chris Argent, Scott had somehow held himself together. Liam almost couldn’t shut up about the way Scott seemed to bury his agony underneath a determination to do whatever it takes to save the supernaturals and humans of the city. Even to the point of gouging out his own eyes.

They hadn’t healed correctly. Like Deucalion before him, Scott could only see now when he transformed into a wolf, and even then the world was covered with a hazy red veil.

The occupants of the house had fallen silent after Scott’s announcement. Finally, Stiles broke the pause with an announcement of his own. “You need me here.”

“To do what? Make fun of me when I trip?”

“Come on, I can be much funnier than that. I have endless vision jokes.” Stiles deployed his best cajoling it’s-not-that-bad voice, trying to hide the hint of panic underneath it. Theo knew that Stiles greatest fear wasn’t blindness, it was being unable to do anything to help.

“I don’t need a comedian, Stiles.” Scott took a deep breath in as if he were about to plunge underwater. “There’s nothing you can do for me that you couldn’t do over the phone.”

“That’s not true! I could drive you places, I could—”

“Someone else can drive me places if I need it. Someone that wouldn’t be giving up their entire fucking future to do so. Deaton can tell me what I need to know about … adjusting. Mason can help me with the bestiaries. There’s no mystery here for you to solve.”

Theo could imagine the stricken look on the human’s face. Scott couldn’t but he most likely didn’t need to.

“I don’t want you here, Stiles. It’s about time you got to write your own story. You’ve spent the last three years helping me live mine, and--.”

“I was here …” Stiles’s voice was low and dangerous. “I was exactly where I wanted to be.”

“I don’t want to sound like I’m ungrateful.” Scott muttered. “God, what a stupid thing to say.”

“Yeah,” Stiles snapped. 

“Stiles, are you trying to convince me that the program means nothing to you? You left a phone message your first day there that talked about how much you loved it. Tell me you don’t want to do that anymore. I promise I’ll change my mind if you really mean it.”

Stiles, uncharacteristically, didn’t snap back with an immediate answer. Theo suspected he couldn’t say anything.

“You have to go.” Scott ordered as gently as he could. There was the sound of car keys being tossed and caught.

“What? I gave her to you.”

“I can’t drive anymore.”

“Scott—”

“You heard me, Stiles. You have to leave, now. You are going to have to get up before dawn tomorrow to get to the airport in time, and you’ve still got packing to do. Please, Stiles … I can’t ruin your life, too.”

Charged silence hung in the air for what had to be thirty seconds. Glass shattered within the house, shattered in the way that meant violence had happened. Theo readied himself to look like he just arrived as he heard a heavy tread stomp its way toward the front door.

Stiles threw open the front door. His face bore all the outward marks of rage, but it was that kind of rage that only served to cover a deeper hurt. His skin was flushed, his teeth gritted in half a snarl, but there was more moisture in his eyes then there should be.

“You,” he greeted. 

“Hello, Stiles.” Theo tried to act as if he didn’t know what was going on. 

The other boy stared at him, face slowly resolving into a mask of indignation. “If you say something sarcastic or, worse, try to comfort me, I’ll strangle you to death with my bare hands.”

Theo blinked twice. “Is that something a future law enforcement officer should say?”

“It seems I’m going to be an FBI agent whether I want to or not,” he said bitterly. “But that also means I’ll have a gun and I’ll know how to use it.”

“And there’s the abuse of authority we all know and love.”

“Fuck you, Theo.”

“Fuck you, Stiles. See you next summer?”

“Christmas.”

Theo shook his head with a smile. “I’m not personally familiar with George Washington’s academic standards, but you’ve taken a month off from classes. See you in June.”

For a moment more, they glared at each other, and then Stiles stomped away to his Jeep. He got in, nearly flooded the engine, and then pulled away, leaving black skid marks on the street.

Theo watched him go with reluctance. Stiles departure meant he couldn’t stall anymore. He knocked on the front door.

“Come in, Theo,” Scott said loud enough for him to hear. The alpha had been listening. Grimacing, he entered the house.

Liam hovered over Scott, carefully picking shards of glass out of his hair. Scott sat perfectly still in a kitchen chair that had been pulled into the living room. He had set it up against a bare wall. Ironically, Theo was reminded of a king on his throne being anointed by a bishop. 

“You should call him. He’s pretty mad,” Liam said as he brushed some glass off of Scott’s shoulder. Stiles had put a hole in the wall five feet to the left. 

“I know he’s mad. Throwing something at me was a pretty big clue.” Scott said wryly. “I’ll wait a few weeks, until he’s back in Virginia. He’ll be more willing to listen once he’s back in school.”

Theo stopped in the middle of the room. 

“Don’t you think …” Liam began.

“I’m not going to be the thing that weighs him down.”

“All I know is that if Mason was permanently hurt, I wouldn’t want to go to a stupid school either.”

Scott frowned.

“You’re not Stiles,” Theo remarked, with a little bit of a smirk.

Liam took a step back. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? And what are you doing here?”

Theo swallowed and so he decided to answer the easier of the two questions. “Stiles has several flaws. His biggest flaw is his low self-esteem.”

“That could describe a third of the pack and half of Beacon Hills High School,” Liam snapped. 

“I’m telling you what I learned when I studied all of you. Stiles thinks he’s only worthwhile when he’s trying to fix everyone else’s problems.”

Liam crossed his arms, stubbornly.

“He does it all the time!” Theo pushed the issue, steering the conversation away from why he had come over. “He accidentally dragged his best friend into the woods, so he fixated on helping Scott become … Scott. Instead of taking care of himself after the nogitsune possessed him, he focused on helping Malia learn about being human. Behind both his morbid curiosity and his paranoia is the urge to find something to do that doesn’t require him to look in a mirror.”

Liam stared at him; even Scott’s head was pointed in his direction.

“Wow.” Scott shook his head. “Speaking of evasion ...” 

“Maybe I am.” Theo shrugged. “Stiles doesn’t want to go back to Virginia because for the first time in his life he won’t have anyone else to take care of and that’s frightening to him.”

“Stiles isn’t afraid,” Liam defended him. 

Scott raised his hand. “I know what you’re saying but—”

“But nothing. It’s why you sent him away. Staying here and taking care of you is just another way for him to avoid growing up.”

Liam grimaced at him and then snagged Theo by the arm. “Okay, Sigmund Freud. Come with me.”

Theo opened up his mouth to protest, but before he could, Scott asked, “Where are you going?”

“To get a broom and a dustpan to clean up the glass.” Liam answered.

“Two of us?” Theo cursed the fact that he wasn’t as strong as Liam, who dragged him away without much effort.

When they got to the kitchen, Liam went over to the counter and flipped the switch on a strange appliance. Theo’s hands snapped up to his ears. 

“What is that?”

“White-noise generator. Melissa got tired of being eavesdropped on.”

Both of them stood stock-still at the sound of Scott’s mother’s name. Neither of them had been very close to her — she despised Theo for obvious reasons, and she had never quite forgiven Liam for that night at the library ether — but they were still standing in her house after her death. 

“You need to stay here with him.”

“Me?” Theo laughed out loud at the absurdity of it. “No!”

“Keep your voice down. Scott will still hear if you shout like that. Someone has to stay here with him.” Liam argued. “I have school. I have parents that want to see me. He’s already made it clear that he won’t let me ditch either of them to take care of him.”

“There’s no one else?”

Liam’s eyes blazed. “Scott’s being an idiot dick about this. He keeps insisting he won’t let anyone give up their lives to take care of him. But you don’t have a life so he’ll have no excuse.”

“Thanks.”

The beta poked him accusingly in the chest. “I’m not sorry; it’s the truth. Or was there another reason you were standing outside listening to Scott and Stiles talk instead of coming in like a normal person.”

Theo opened his mouth to argue, but before he could, Liam snapped off the white-noise generator. With an accusatory snarl, he grabbed the dustpan and broom and went back into the living room.

Scott was sitting in the same chair. Theo thought it was odd to see him so … passive. “What were you two talking about in there?”

“Are you asking me?” Theo replied, fighting the urge to gesture toward Liam, because Scott couldn’t see it.

“Yes.”

“It was his idea!” Theo protested. 

Scott shrugged. “And I want to hear what it is without—”

“Tough!” Liam snapped, bringing the dustpan down. “Theo’s going to be staying with you.”

“I don’t need—”

“Yes, you do, Scott. There’s so many things you will need help to do for the next couple of months at least, and I think that everyone’s sick of pretending you can get by on your own. More to the point, and Theo needs a place to stay anyway.”

Now it was Theo’s turn to deny things. “I don’t need—”

“Still sleeping in your truck?” Liam challenged him. 

“You’re sleeping in your truck?” Scott said, surprised.

Theo gaped for a moment like a landed fish. He didn’t want to seem desperate or pathetic to either of them. He had come over simply to be with people, because he couldn’t take sitting in his truck staring at billboards another second. He had prepared some story to explain why, but at this moment he couldn’t remember it. 

Embarrassed, he resorted to sarcasm. “The house my fake parents bought was reclaimed by the bank.”

“You’re staying here then.” Scott nodded to himself. 

“You’re serious?”

“Why wouldn’t he be serious?” Liam replied. “I gotta get home. I told my parents that I’d be home for dinner.” 

Before either Scott or Theo could object, Liam was out the door. Liam thought he was being so clever. He wasn’t. But his hasty departure left Theo standing awkwardly in front of the alpha. At least he didn’t have to worry about making eye contact.

“I don’t have to stay.” Theo swallowed. “No one should try to tell you how to live, and I’m not even sure that I want to stay here.”

“Honestly, I know you don’t have to, but I’d like it if you did. Until I saw you at the station, I’d thought you’d left after the Ghost Riders. I don’t like the thought of you being homeless.”

“I know you wouldn’t; that’s why I think you should give this some more thought.”

“What’s there to think about?”

“We don’t have the best history. I tried to kill you. Technically, I did kill you.”

Scott stood up, easily. He still had his supernatural reflexes. He moved toward Theo, obviously honing on him by scent and sound. “Yes, you did. And then you helped us with the Ghost Riders and then you helped us with Monroe and Gerard. Liam trusts you, and I trust Liam. You helped protect him when I asked you to, so I trust you.”

“I’ve been helpful before. Where did that leave us?”

The alpha nodded. “Yes, you were. Still want to take my power?”

“Scott, don’t be stupid. I wouldn’t come out and say so if I wanted to!” Theo scoffed at the absurdity.

In a flash, Scott lunged forward and grabbed Theo by the shoulder. He tilted his head back as if he were looking at the ceiling, but, in reality, he was exposing his neck. Theo felt his eyes bulge. “Here’s your chance. I’m still trying to … learn how to get around, even in my own house. You’re here with me alone. If you still want to kill me, there’ll never be a better time.”

“You’re crazy.”

“And you’re not attacking.” Scott let go of his shoulder. “You’re not that person anymore. The truth is, I’m not the same person I was back then either. So do you want to stay here or not?”

Theo felt a wave of resistance bubble up in his gut. He wanted to stay, but he didn’t want Scott or anyone to know that he wanted to stay. It was ego and it was fear, and he knew he was going to get hurt if he made the choice, but leaving would hurt more.

“I’ll stay.”

“I’ll take you upstairs and help you get the spare bedroom set up.” Scott put his hand out to touch the wall and headed toward the stairs. Theo followed him.


	2. Chapter 2

Theo woke up with a start. The pseudo-scientific industrial horror of his half-finished nightmare gave way to the fuzzy velvet gray of an early Beacon Hills morning. Something had crashed nearby, loud enough to startle him right out of his fitful sleep. That he couldn’t quite remember where he was made his pulse race, and in his disorientation, he lunged off the bed. He barely managed to get a hand down on the ground before his face met the carpeted floor. 

The offending sound was followed by someone cursing. Not a particularly loud curse, so it took Theo a moment to recognize Scott’s voice. 

He was in the McCall house, he finally remembered, the last shreds of confusion clearing from his mind.

Standing up, he glanced outside. Shadows pooled between the house as if it were still night, but the upper sky had started to shift from violet to orange. Slivers of that new light were caught in the frost flowering on his window glass. 

He had to shake off the feeling that he was some place he shouldn’t be. The guest bedroom was now his bedroom, technically, but it didn’t feel like it. Theo could still catch Isaac Lahey’s scent in the mattress. Some of the beta’s clothes still hung in the closet. He’d have to get rid of them.

Theo fished around on the floor for the pair of sweat pants he had been wearing the night before. He would have to do laundry soon, as he didn’t have many changes of clothes. What little personal belongings he still possessed were stored in a single drawer or still in a bag on the floor. He did have a fresh t-shirt left.

Out of habit, he checked the hallway to make sure no one was there waiting for him. Once reassured, he knocked on the door of the bedroom next to his. “Scott?”

“I’m okay, Theo.” Scott unsuccessfully tried to sound reassuring. “Everything is fine.”

Theo frowned at the wall between them. While the alpha had undoubtedly practiced those words many, many times in the last few years, he would never be very successful at fooling a person who had been trained to read his specific emotions. “Then you won’t mind me coming in.”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want you to!” 

Theo heard Scott scrabbling for the dead bolt on his door, so he opened it before the werewolf could lock it. Scott was still in his sleep pants; he must not have been up for long. 

“You’re not naked.” Theo said teasingly, while he searched the room for any signs of the crash. The contents of the top shelf of Scott’s closet were now spread across the floor of the room. 

“Why … why would I be naked?” Scott went from confused to angry. “I told you not to come in.”

“You didn’t actually say that. You only said that you minded me coming in because you didn’t want me to.” Theo slid around Scott to check out the rest of the room. “You didn’t precisely order me not to come in.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Did you get hit in the head?”

Scott’s face warred between his embarrassment and the recognition that he was being childish. Theo waited silently. 

“Yeah. Not badly. I … I wanted to find something that I remember being up on the shelf, but I …” Scott bit his lip. Theo bent over and started picking up the things that fell over. “I forgot that I had just jammed everything up there. It all came down.”

“What were you wanting to find?”

“It’s nothing.”

Theo hesitated. “I’m going to have to pick it up anyway.”

“It’s called Perfection. It’s a game.”

The brightly colored box was easy to find. Theo picked it up and shook it. 

“That’s it.” 

The game consisted of a central box with a tray to push down. There were twenty-five pieces of different shapes that fit into holes in the board, and a sixty-second timer. The object was to put all twenty-five pieces into their correct locations before the timer ran out. If you failed to do so, the game would throw all the pieces into the air. 

“Was this yours?”

“It was my Dad’s.” Scott sat down on the bed. “His dad bought it for him when he was young, and when he moved out, he gave it to me. I thought I could play it.”

“Huh.” Theo put it to the side and knelt down to pick down the other stuff. There were scrapbooks. Old video games. Comics in bags. He wanted to ask what Scott wanted the game for, but he figured it was none of his business.

Scott must have figured out what he was doing and knelt down to help him. Theo slapped his hand. 

“What?” Scott exclaimed. 

“Go make breakfast.” Theo tried to keep his voice as non-confrontational as possible. 

“Theo—”

“I want Honey Nut Cheerios.”

“Theo—”

“Go on.” 

Scott stood up slowly, obviously confused. He grabbed a shirt from the dresser as he left the room.

Theo sighed. 

It took him about ten minutes to get everything back into the correct boxes and back on the top shelf in the closet. He put the game on Scott’s desk as he left the room.

On the way to the kitchen, he passed by the dining room table. Arranged in neat little piles was the obscene amount of paperwork that Scott would have to work through in order to get all his affairs in order. There was the information on the intestate succession laws, as Melissa had died without a will. There was a copy of his father’s will. There was even the letter from the executor of Chris Argent’s estate. There was the life insurance policies, the forms for the federal pension, and the application for permanent disability. None of these problems would take care of themselves.

Pausing, he picked up a random pile and headed into the kitchen.

Scott had the coffee machine going, a percolator that must have dated back to the early nineties. The table was set with milk, bowls, spoons, the Honey Nut Cheerios, Cinnamon Life, Count Chocula, and Fruity Pebbles.

“It’ll be ready in a moment,” Scott announced.

Theo sat down. “Cool. Thanks.” 

With a full coffee cup in each hand, Scott walked slowly to the table and put one down in … well, in the general vicinity of Theo. Scott had vowed to learn how to get around without using his wolf sight. 

Theo assumed he was doing well. He was just as much a layperson as Scott was when it came to dealing with blindness.

“I’m sorry for waking you up.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“Because you were asleep.”

“To settle your nerves, you woke me up right in the middle of a flashback to my days as Fanged Igor. You did me a favor.”

Scott frowned slightly and then reached for a random cereal box, grabbing the Fruity Pebbles. “Okay.”

“After breakfast, we’re going to fill out the paperwork for the social worker.”

The alpha opened his mouth to protest, but then he just nodded. Theo took a sip of his coffee. It was pretty good.

**~*~**

Theo had bent over the laptop for an hour when the front door opened without anyone knocking. He raised his head, listening intently, and then smirked. The clock told him that they must have come here directly after school had been let out. Liam, Theo had expected, but he hadn’t come alone. He picked out the casual tread of Mason and the light step of Corey. Theo bent back down to his typing. He was almost finished, anyway.

With the casual arrogance that only the carefree can exhibit, the three high school juniors filed into the kitchen. Liam went straight to the refrigerator without even a greeting, while Mason tried to crane his neck to read over Theo’s shoulder. 

“What are you doing?”

“Paperwork.” Theo shut the laptop to avoid the prying eyes. He wasn’t going to share Scott’s application for the California Department of Social Services with anyone, even pack.

Mason snorted good-naturedly. “That’s vague.”

“What it is, in fact, is none of your business.”

Liam turned and shouted “Heads up!” He tossed soda cans to Mason and Corey. He popped the top off of his own drink and leaned on the table, like he was an extra in a 50s rebel-teen flick. “So where’s Scott?”

Theo narrowed his eyes at the beta. “Out back.”

“You let him go outside?” Liam exclaimed in feigned shock.

“One, I neither _let him_ nor _don’t let him_ do anything. He wanted to go outside, and he’s been cooped up in this house since the funerals.” Theo wondered if in his race to protect Scott’s privacy, had he saved his work? “I doubt he’s going to run into anything between the back stoop and the shed that could possibly kill him.”

“You know, I was just joking.” Liam never did cope well with someone taking his jests at face value. 

“Though to be honest, it’s Beacon Hills,” complained Corey. “It’s entirely possible he could be ambushed.”

“I’m not paid to be his bodyguard.” Theo gestured dramatically. “Wait, I just realized I’m not paid!”

“You get room and board, Theo.” Mason scolded him lightly. “You should be more careful. You know you would be in big trouble if anything happened to Scott.”

“Would I?”

Mason mockingly pointed at him. “You’re a criminal. The Sheriff is just waiting for you to screw up. Stiles would fly himself home powered by sheer rage.”

Theo lost the struggle not to childishly stick out his tongue, but he felt the whole conversation had taken a turn for the surreal. “I could take them both.”

Reality returned as Corey took a step back in alarm. 

“I didn’t mean—”

The other chimera waved it off. “My problem, but you do seem very happy about this.”

Liam laughed. “Of course he’s happy about it. He’s no longer sleeping in his truck!”

Theo went to the refrigerator to get his own drink to hide his scowl. Would Liam ever get tired of telling people about that? 

Apparently not. “I’m sure it’s a nice truck, Theo, but it can’t be comfortable to sleep in.”

“No, it isn’t.” Theo couldn’t tell why he was sour about it all.

“I’m sure that’s a reason, but that’s not the only reason,” Mason announced.

“What do you mean?” demanded Liam.

Mason looked at Theo, searchingly. Theo shrugged under the scrutiny. 

“Theo was trained to befriend the pack, right?”

“Right.”

Corey looked decidedly uncomfortable at even the vaguest indirect mention of the Doctors.

“You still have that training even though you allegedly aren’t trying to kill us anymore.”

The other chimera muttered “Allegedly” under his breath.

“Of course he isn’t!” Liam protested. 

“I don’t know, Liam. I could be plotting to use my influence over Scott to force all of you to serve my every whim.” Theo snapped. “Oh, that reminds me. Scott wants you to wear Sailor Moon costumes when you aren’t in school.”

“Har-har.”

“What are you three losers doing over here, anyway?”

They all had the audacity to look offended to varying degrees. 

“School’s out.”

Theo put his hands on his hips, waiting for a better answer. 

“We wanted to see Scott.” Liam said firmly.

“You saw him two days ago.”

“They haven’t seen him in two weeks.” Liam jerked his thumb over at Mason and Corey. “I’m going to go talk to him first.”

Opening his mouth, Theo wanted to tell Liam to back off, but if the beta had demanded to know why, he wouldn’t have an answer, so he didn’t say anything. Liam went out the back door, while Mason went into the living room to set up the coffee table so they can do their homework.

He had forgotten that Corey was still there until the other chimera spoke.

“Was it the Skin-Walkers?”

“Whoa!” Theo nearly dropped the glass he was holding. “What? Was it the Skin-Walkers, what?”

“When you were our alpha, you weren’t like this,” Corey said.

“Like what?”

“A person.” Corey blushed and looked away. “I mean, you were a person then, but you were … I mean …”

“I get it. I was a pretty big asshole.”

“You weren’t an asshole, you were scary. When you threatened me, I knew you weren’t kidding.”

Theo looked away into the sink. “I’m sorry—”

Corey interrupted him, a little frustrated. “I wasn’t fishing for an apology. I wanted to know if it was the Skin-Walkers who changed you. Whatever they did to you.”

“You know? I wish I could say yes, but I can’t. I don’t think they changed me at all. Back then, I wanted power and you and the others were the means to it. You were weaker than me, so I pushed you around. Scott may be blind, but he’s still stronger than me.”

“So what do you want now?” 

Theo answered immediately. “To survive.”

Corey’s brow scrunched up. “I don’t think that’s true. You’re smart enough and strong enough to survive by yourself, but you stick around with the people who know your tricks. You were talking to us just then like … we were friends. What do you really want? I think the least I deserve is an honest answer.”

He still wouldn’t look at the other chimera, but he couldn’t avoid the truth that Corey was mostly right. “I guess I didn’t want to be alone.”

“Okay.” Corey turned on his heels and went into the living room.

**~*~**

Two days later, a storm roared up the Great Valley. Particularly violent, the storm had cast parts of Sacramento into darkness, tearing down power lines and exploding transformers. By the time it reached Beacon Hills, it crashed across the Preserve, leaving a trail of uprooted trees. It wasn’t as bad as the Darach’s storm, but it was certainly intimidating.

Outside the trees creaked under the unrelenting assault of the wind. Theo looked out the picture window in the living room and saw an empty plastic garbage can fly through the air. It belonged to the Harrisons across the street. He couldn’t guess where it would end up.

He wandered into the kitchen and sniffed the air. The roast cooking in the oven seemed to be turning out okay. Theo had taken a crash course in cooking, because he didn’t want him and Scott to survive solely on TV dinners and fast food. They had better metabolisms than humans, but he had begun to get sick of French fries. It looked like it would be another hour before it’d be time to start the potatoes.

As Theo made his way to the living room, he passed the staircase to notice Scott sitting on it. The alpha sat up, alert and even a little tense. Theo wrinkled his brow until he figured out what was going on. 

“Bad storm,” he said aloud.

“Yeah,” Scott gritted through his teeth. 

“Not the worst I’ve seen ... been through.”

The alpha grunted.

“It’s gotta be different for you now, I guess.”

Scott didn’t say anything. 

“It’s okay if it’s freaking you out.”

“It’s not freaking me out.”

“Sure.” Theo rolled his eyes even though he was convinced Scott couldn’t notice. “That’s why you’re sitting here looking like you’re ready to hide under the bed.”

“Did you just make a dog joke?”

“Yup. Stiles is in Virginia, someone’s gotta pick up the slack.”

Theo stood in the hallway watching. He could wait Scott out. It was easy. All he had to do was wait there, silently, and eventually Scott would think he was doing something wrong and start talking.

“It’s different.” Scott began slowly, right on cue. “I hear a sound and I keep trying to look for what made it, but I can’t anymore. Most of time, it’s just like a gnat on my perception. But this storm …” 

“Too many noises.”

“I never understood how often I relied on my sight to be safe … I think I understand him a little bit better now.”

Theo didn’t ask to whom Scott was referring. “Dinner’s in an hour and a half. Is there anything I can do to help?”

Scott shook his head. “I have to get used to it.”

“I’m going to watch the game then.” 

“The game?”

He glanced around. “The basketball game.”

“Since when did you become a suburban dad?”

“Hey! You complain about the dog jokes and then come at me like this?”

This drew a smile from Scott. “I mean, I just have a difficult time seeing you interested in watching sports on television.”

“Well,” Theo felt cross as old memories welled up. “There wasn’t much else to do between murders.” He stomped off to the living room.

The game couldn’t hold Theo’s attention. He wasn’t relaxed or happy anymore, he was tensed up. Scott hadn’t meant anything bad by his remark, and Theo had taken his head off.

He knew why he was upset, but there wasn’t any way to fix it now. He shifted on the couch, trying to force his attention back to the King’s faltering offense. 

“Someone has to take a shot sometime!” Theo sneered at himself inwardly. He hadn’t said that for his benefit; he had said it for Scott’s benefit. Look, he had tried to say, I’m normal.

_We’re normal._

The storm raged on outside, beating against the windows in a desperate attempt to get his attention. According to the National Weather Service, it’d be hours before it let up. Theo hoped they didn’t lose power. 

Still a half hour before it was time to cook again. 

The game played out on the screen, pointlessly.

Someone knocked on the front door. 

“I’ll get it!” called Scott from the steps. He was closer. For perhaps a second, Theo thought about keeping his place on the couch, but he couldn’t. Who would be visiting in this storm?

Scott stood before the door, his hand resting on the handle. The tenseness in his shoulders from the storm suddenly redoubled. Theo opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, but the alpha pulled the door open.

“What are you doing here?”

Peter Hale’s umbrella was doing its best to escape his grasp, but it had no such luck. “Is that any way to greet a guest and an ally?”

“You’re not a guest. I didn’t ask you to come over,” Scott growled. “You were an ally only as long as you were in danger. Now I don’t know what you are.”

“Oh, that happens to be what I’m here to talk to you about, Scott. You know I think you truly believe, in that charmingly moronic way that you have, that the danger is over. It isn’t.” He glanced around as he revealed he was carrying a briefcase in his other hand. “Are you going to invite me in?”

“Given your track record,” Theo said coming down the hall, “why the hell would Scott ever invite you into his house again?”

“Look at the pot calling the kettle black,” Peter replied icily. “I do have a serious point to make, Scott.”

Scott nodded. “Okay. Come in.” He stepped back from the door and went towards the kitchen.

Peter followed, but he took a moment to shake out his umbrella in the foyer and put it on a stand while Theo glared at him. “Would you be a dear abomination of science and turn off that televisions set? I could play better than that wretched team in high school.” 

Theo did as he was asked, as it seemed a harmless suggestion and then met Scott and Peter in the kitchen. Scott had already sat down and Peter had taken the seat at the opposite end of the table. 

“What’s cooking? Smells delicious.”

“Never mind that,” Scott interrupted. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Monroe.”

“She fled.” The alpha responded. “When the Anuk-ite was captured, most of the people it influenced went back to their normal lives.”

“You really believe that they stopped being afraid of you?” Peter sneered.

“No. They just realized how stupid it was to act on it.” Scott snapped. “I’m afraid of you, and I know it’s stupid. You’re too much of a coward to do anything directly, even if I am blind.”

Theo couldn’t help the look he shot Scott. The words and the tone were vicious and completely surprising. 

Peter didn’t react. Instead, he opened up his briefcase. “You done? I would prefer you get it out of your system so we can get down to business.”

For a moment, a look of sheer rage passed over Scott’s face, but, with a wince, he banished it. He nodded brusquely. 

“You’ve been acting as if the threat is over, but it’s not over, Scott. Monroe is out there with the remnants of Gerard’s army, with serious amounts of weaponry, with a _purpose,_ and I will bet you every single one of my Swiss bank accounts for all the lint in your pockets that she still has a copy of the map of the Nemetons. This is not over, and it won’t be over as long as she’s out there, free and alive.”

Peter’s words wove a dark spell around the room. If nothing else, the ex-alpha was a powerful speaker. Theo couldn’t argue with any of it.

“What do you expect me to do about it?” Scott seemed more than subdued, but resigned.

“You’re the only person who can do something about it,” Peter answered with all the conviction he could muster.

Theo bristled. 

“Monroe is not stupid, and she was trained by the best. She lost, but not by much. So, she will go to ground and establish safe house and training grounds. No one is going after her, so she has the time. She will rebuild her numbers, and she will come up with a new plan. Hell, she could execute Gerard’s old plan; we don’t know _how_ he planned to use the Nemetons.” 

Scott’s hands clenched underneath the table where they rested on his legs. Theo wanted to say something to him, to distract him, to calm him down, because the alpha was responding exactly as Peter wanted him to. 

The omega went on. “The only way to stop her is to isolate her, wear away her strength, corner her, and then rip her apart. But that can only be done by the wolf packs she threatens working together.”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to get them on board.”

“Scott …” Peter chuckled. “Scott, Scott, Scott. Theo will tell you why that won’t work.”

Theo flipped Peter off, yet he kept his tone informative. “Werewolf packs traditionally rely on concealment and isolation to protect themselves from hunters and other dangers. Working with other packs in a joint effort to track down Monroe is going to go against the very tactics that have kept them safe for centuries.”

“Why?” Scott asked out loud and then something occurred to him. “Surely they can see Monroe doesn’t have a Code.”

Peter smirked. “They won’t recognize that until it is too late. When I was in a coma, I blamed Talia for being soft, but I was wrong. She simply had too much regard for history, and she believed that others would learn from past mistakes. We were caught by surprise because Gerard and Kate simply didn’t care about their French platitudes, and that is exactly the problem. For as long as any pack remembers, the Argents and their Code were the examples for hunters to follow, and if they weren’t able to follow those examples, the Calaveras ruthlessly enforced the consequences. You broke the Argents, and Kate crippled the Calaveras.”

“I didn’t _break_ anyone!” The alpha’s interruption was filled with pain. “Why do people keep saying that?”

“It’s not about truth,” Theo put in. “It’s about perception.”

“He’s right. Unless someone convinces them to change the way they respond to this threat, they’ll never see Monroe coming.”

Scott’s head drooped as he no doubt imagined it.

“And to everyone else in our world, you’ve done that and a lot more. You witnessed the deaths of every single member of the Argents' main branch. You defeated the Alpha Pack. You thwarted the Dread Doctors’ experiments. You banished the Wild Hunt. You are the True Alpha of this century. You even blinded yourself to save the supernatural.”

“I didn’t do that by myself!”

“False modesty is very becoming, Scott.”

Scott sputtered. “How do people even know about this?”

Peter smirked even though Scott couldn’t see it. “Someone may have been spreading stories about your exploits.”

“Why? Why would you do such a thing?”

“Because I want to be safe. I want my daughter, my nephew, and my niece to be safe. That means Monroe has to be stopped, permanently.”

Theo snapped. “So, you do it.”

“No one will follow me. I’m an omega and a kin killer.” Peter shrugged. “It is what it is. If I did try to rally the packs to work together to destroy these Codeless hunters, I’d be laughed out of their homes if they didn’t kill me just to be safe. But, my dear former beta, they _will_ follow _you._ ”

“Will they? Even if what you said is true, the moment they see me, they’ll realize that being a True Alpha doesn’t mean I’m a war leader. They’re going to see an eighteen-year-old werewolf who can’t drive a car or use a cell phone.” 

Peter opened his briefcase. “Your pet chimera has the right idea.” He took something out and walked over to where Scott was sitting. “Perception is more important than truth. You don’t need to be the strongest werewolf in the world to lead the packs, all you need is for them to think you’re the strongest werewolf in the world. This will help.” 

Theo’s eyes got big. “Where did you get that?”

The omega said nothing, but put his prize down in front of Scott on the table with an audible click. Scott reached out and took the gift, handling it gently. With a flick of his wrist, Scott extended the white cane.


	3. Chapter 3

Theo couldn’t sleep. He had tried to watch some television sprawled on the couch, but he found he couldn’t focus on the show. If someone asked him, he wouldn’t be able to tell what had even happened on the screen. He tried to play some Mortal Kombat 10 on his laptop at the kitchen table, but it hadn’t held his interest after the first bout. He even tried to read one of the books he found in the house. It was a Reader’s Digest anthology from the 1960s, and it looked like it hadn’t been touched since it was published. He stared at it uncomprehendingly for twenty minutes, lying in his bed. 

He couldn’t sleep, yet he couldn’t seem to do anything else either. He’d be more aggravated with the whole situation if he weren’t so tired. The grandfather’s clock which stood in the living room informed him, unhelpfully, that it was nearly two in the morning.

Finally, because it was the only thing left to do, he started to pace. He circumnavigated the entire first floor at least three times, going through one room after another. The house stood quiet, even to his ears, and it shouldn’t have been. Even ghosts should make a little noise.

Stopping at the base of the stairs, he stared into the darkness that brooded at the top. It required only a little more focus to find Scott’s heartbeat. It seemed that Theo wasn’t the only one having trouble getting to sleep.

He should go talk to Scott. Theo put one foot on the lowest stair. He should tell Scott what he was worried about.

Yanking his foot off the stair, he stomped away, heading for the back door. How would that conversation possibly start? _Hi, Scott, I, Theo, the person who infiltrated your pack by pretending to be your friend and killed you when you trusted me, am very concerned that you might be being manipulated into doing something against your better interest._

Instead of attempting something so fundamentally stupid, Theo would exercise until he got tired enough to sleep. He pulled his shift off over his head and tossed it onto the couch as he passed by. He’d take coywolf form and run through the Preserve in the middle of the cold November night.

Exhausting himself far away from this place sounded, by a huge margin, like a better plan.

The cold metal of the kitchen door handle stopped him in his tracks. Snarling, he tried to force himself to open the door and shift, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“For fuck’s sake, make up your mind!”

There had once been a time in his life when he was absolutely sure of what he wanted and what steps he needed to take to get it. Now, he couldn’t even make a decision on whether to talk to someone, even if that person was the reason he was still living in Beacon Hills.

Ten minutes later, he opened Scott’s door. He didn’t bother to knock. The room was lit only by the streetlight’s glow coming in through the window. 

In that faint light, Scott was sitting on his bed, back straight against the headboard. He hadn’t changed into his sleepwear; in fact, he had only taken off his shoes and socks. Resting in his lap was that fucking white cane.

Theo refused to speak first. Eventually, he sat down on the floor next to the door, back to the wall, mirroring Scott’s posture.

On the bed table, the glowing face of his digital alarm clock lazily turned over the minutes, from 2:16 to 2:17. And again. And again. The clock churned through the minutes as the pair of them sat in the empty night.

“You should go to bed.” Even at a whisper, Scott’s voice made Theo flinch as if someone had thrown a rock through a window. He hadn’t even noticed Scott’s lips move.

“Not sleepy.”

Logically, Theo understood that he had said those words at a normal, casual volume, but it sounded to his own ears as if he had shouted them.

The shadows settled down once more between them, like a flock of black pigeons startled by a cat. The quiet dark allowed them to pretend that they didn’t know that there was another person in the room and they couldn’t tell what the other was feeling.

“If you’re not going to sleep, you should spit it out.”

Theo’s eyes flickered gold in the darkness. “What should I spit out?”

“Whatever it is you want to say.”

The chimera let his head drop down far enough so he could no longer make out the faint outline of Scott’s head. Instead of listening to Scott’s heartbeat, he listened to the creaking wood of the house settling around them. Instead of listening to Scott’s slow breathing, he listened to the cold autumn winds outside. 

Scott finally moved, picking up the cane and laying it to the bed table, next to the clock.

“There’s nothing I can say to you that won’t sound outrageously stupid coming from my mouth. Why do something when I already know what the result will be?”

The alpha grunted. “You won’t get anywhere with that attitude.”

Theo could only answer that with a bitter laugh. 

“I can’t see the clock, so I don’t know what time it is.”

“It’s twenty minutes until three.”

“You’re not sleepy. I’m not sleepy. What else are we going to do but talk?”

Theo drew in a lung full of air, honing in on the chemo signals in the room. Scott was sad and maybe a little anxious, but he wasn’t angry. His heart beat had remained steady. He wanted Theo to talk to him, and Theo wanted to talk to him, but he absolutely did not want to talk about the topic that wouldn’t let him rest.

If Theo did decide to talk about it, he ran the risk of ruining what he had here. Theo had a bed, a roof over his head, food, and, above all, a purpose. If Scott got mad at him, he might have to leave, and Theo didn’t want to leave. This was so much better than bitterly nursing his failures while lying in the back of his truck under the open stars.

If he talked, he might have to reveal more than he wanted to reveal.

But if he didn’t talk, he might lose what he wanted anyway.

“You don’t need to do this.” Theo finally said in the softest voice he could manage.

“Talk to you?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t.”

“Scott.” The hissing whisper was a little short of a plea. “You don’t have to follow Peter’s idea.”

“I think I kinda do.”

Theo drew his knees up to his chest in order to do something other than shout. It didn’t work, so he counted down from twenty to keep the fury locked inside. His words still came out sharp. 

“Why, because he threw a white cane at you? Can’t you see what he’s doing?”

Scott snorted.

“You know what I mean.” Theo felt his face reddening in embarrassment.

“Do I understand that Peter is manipulating me? Yes.” Scott said after a while. “The thing you have to understand about Peter is that manipulation is the only tool he has. It’s not like he can come out and ask to work with me. He doesn’t trust … anybody, really. I think it’s been hard-wired in his mind since the fire that the only way he’ll get what he wants is by taking it. Since force is out of the question that leaves only manipulation.”

“You think you’re more powerful than he is?”

“I know it.” 

“How do you figure that?”

“He told me.” Scott said quietly. “Not directly, of course. He appealed to my vanity. He appealed to my sense of duty. He refrained from being directly insulting. I’ve known him long enough to understand what that means.”

Theo huffed, frustrated. He gripped his knees. Eventually, if this kept up, he might hurt himself. “So you’re going to go off with him on this mission.”

“Probably.”

“Remind me. How many times has he tried to kill you?” 

“Killing me isn’t his goal.” Scott protested. “His goal is to gain prestige among the other packs, because prestige equals power for him and his family.”

“Scott. That might be his primary goal, but if you think he’s not going to try to off you the moment he’s gotten that prestige, you’re …” Theo trailed off. He was going to say that Scott was suicidal. He meant it as a provocative insult, but then it occurred to him that he might not be far off the mark. 

“I’m what?”

Theo changed direction. “Even if you agree with his ideas, you shouldn’t go.”

“You think so?”

“I know so. You’ve got things to do. A lot of other things to do.”

“Things that are more important than stopping Monroe?” Scott shifted his legs off the bed. “Both of us know I don’t have anything more important than that.”

“You have things that you have to learn, financial matters to settle, and your future to plan.”

“I don’t care about any of that.” Scott stood up and started walking toward the bathroom. His movements were slow and careful; he was finding the way by memory.

“So you’re going to let them take the house? You’re giving up all hope of a higher education?” 

Scott disappeared into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

“What are you doing?”

“Brushing my teeth.” The door muffled Scott’s voice.

Theo stood up and took a step so he could be heard clearly. “You need a home. You need a place that’s yours. Once you get through all the paperwork, once you get the money from the life insurance and the wills, you can pay off the house maybe then you can hare off after Monroe to your hearts content with that manipulative sociopath.”

He stood there as Scott finished in the bathroom. He took another half-step toward the door. 

Scott emerged. “Peter isn’t a sociopath.”

Theo blew air out through his nose. “You know what I mean.”

“Peter isn’t a sociopath. He’s not a psychopath. Neither are you.”

“You’re a psychologist now?”

“No. I did take a course, but it taught me that those things aren’t real. Peter experiences guilt. So do you. Peter knows right from wrong. So do you.” 

Theo looked away sharply. Scott shouldn’t have been able to tell that he was upset, but Theo forgot, for a moment, about chemo signals. Or maybe he wanted to forget, this once.

“Theo, I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean to imply that you’re like Peter. I’m just saying … look, I’m just saying I’m aware that you don’t trust him, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong. Monroe has to be stopped. Everything else is secondary.” He looked away. “Including the house. Including my education.”

“Including your life,” Theo spat out. 

“Maybe,” the alpha admitted.

“Bullshit. You’ve done enough. It’s amazing, but I think I really have to remind you that I do know you, probably better than anyone but Stiles. You didn’t ask to become a werewolf. You didn’t ask to become an alpha. All you wanted to do was keep people from dying in your town and protect your friends. This — Peter’s plan — is not even remotely close to anything you’ve ever dreamed of.”

“And that’s where you’re wrong. You think Monroe’s never going to come back to Beacon Hills? Especially if she tries to execute Gerard’s plan with the Nemetons, she going to have to. Do you think she’s going to stop killing supernaturals?”

“People die all the time, Scott …”

Scott reached out, hands groping through the shadows, until he touched Theo on the arm. “I’m not going to sit here and feel sorry for myself while innocent people are out there dying. Do you have another way to stop Monroe? Some other plan?”

“No.” Theo froze in place as Scott’s touch turned into a firm grip. 

“Then I’m going.”

“Okay. So am I.”

From the intake of Scott’s breath, Theo could feel the alpha getting ready to object, but Scott didn’t let go.

“Don’t even start, Scott. If you believe that hunting down Monroe is more important than your own life here, then how the fuck could you possibly say that hunting down Monroe is less important than my life? You go, I go.”

“And what if I say no?”

Theo swallowed and bet everything on this throw of the dice. “You’re not going to.”

It must have been five minutes that they stood there. “I guess not, Theo. You will do what I tell you though, or I’ll have you dropped off in downtown Los Angeles to fend for yourself. Right now, I’m telling you that you need to go to bed. Tomorrow morning, we get back to work.”

**~*~**

Theo ran his fingers over the brick, drawing a regular pattern as he listened to Dr. Deaton talk to Scott about the logistics for his trip. He wondered how many centuries he would have to trace the symbol for infinity before he wore a grove into the brick wall. If he extended his claws, he could reduce those centuries to hours, but he doubted the veterinarian would appreciate it.

He was growing annoyed. The conversation between Deaton and Scott had not resembled anything he had imagined. Or anything he had hoped for.

“So I don’t have to worry about territories?” Scott asked.

“Werewolves, much like normal wolves, don’t create permanent territories. They do watch over vague and ephemeral geographical areas which contain the resources that the pack needs to survive. For wolves, it’s all about food supply. They have a ‘territory’ for as long as there is enough game. When there isn’t, they move on to somewhere new. For werewolves it is more about being able to maintain the proper cover. The Hales were well-known within the community as civic-minded patrons with deep pockets. Those in Beacon Hills who had the influence to make trouble if they pried into the pack’s affairs had too much to lose by offending someone with Talia’s ties to the schools, to the police, to the government.”

Scott nodded, trying to absorb the situation.

“Werewolves don’t need to maintain feeding grounds. There are plenty of Trader Joe’s in California.” Deaton chuckled which drew an answering chuckle from Scott. “But if someone came close to interfering in Talia’s close relationships with the mayor and the sheriff, she was very adept at strongly discouraging that course of action.”

The Emissary had such a deft hand when it came to handling his young alpha. Theo was quite amazed. Deaton’s soothing presence put Scott at the most ease he had been since the end of the struggle with Monroe. As was just demonstrated, the veterinarian could get Scott to laugh. 

“So they won’t put down Peter as an omega.”

Theo snorted. 

“I’m afraid that Derek’s and Peter’s prejudice against omegas has influenced you too much. I should have spoken with you about this in depth.”

“Actually, it was Gerard’s and Victoria’s attitudes that bothered me the most.” Scott admitted. “They made it clear that lone wolves don’t survive.”

In the crash course about Scott McCall the Doctors had prepared, they had hinted that Scott had several encounters with the Argents in his early days, and many of them were lethal. 

“The Argent’s point of view is twisted by its praxis,” Deaton sounded regretful. “The old Argent Code impelled them only to get involved when a werewolf took a human life, so of course they would often find and kill omegas who had taken human life. If an omega lived quietly and peacefully with a job and a mortgage and a garden in the back, the Argents would never notice them. Over time, they began to think that all omegas were on course for destruction; that’s the only type they met.”

“But I thought that all omegas were unstable.”

“You weren’t,” Theo pointed out helpfully. 

Scott turned to him by reflex, surprised at the compliment. Then he nodded.

“You were an omega with strong ties to your humanity. You had a loving family, you had a powerful anchor, and you had a loyal friend.”

“Yes. Yes, I did.”

Behind his back, Theo’s claws came out. He wish he had a drink so he could wash the bitter taste from his mouth. 

“The Hales come by their disdain for omegas a different way. I’m sure you figured out by now how important pack was for them.”

“Even for Peter,” Scott admitted. 

“For their lineage, family and pack had long ago merged into one. To be without either was inconceivable. I was affiliated only through Talia, and it had a powerful draw for me as well.”

Scott’s head drooped. Deaton was clearly aware of what he said and the emotional impact it must have had. His observation was neither too harsh nor too gentle. 

“The Hales had been a stable pack for centuries.” Deaton continued to muse. “To them, to betray that comfort, to abandon that sense of belonging, defied their imaginations. Anyone who would do such a thing had to be unstable.”

“Peter didn’t—” Theo began. He could still put an end to this madness. 

“You don’t get him,” Scott snapped at Theo.

“And you do?” 

“I do.” Scott voice got soft as if he were remembering. “More than anyone I get him. I understand him because he showed me. He didn’t kill Laura because he didn’t love her. He killed Laura because he loved his family more than his own life. He wanted her power, he did, but the thought running through his mind wasn’t greed for what she had; it was rage for what she hadn’t done. She’d put Derek’s and his safety above justice for their family. He couldn’t imagine a future without his family, and it enraged him that she could.” 

“Elie Wiesel said the opposite of love is indifference.” Deaton observed. “No Hale could imagine choosing to be omega. It is simply beyond their experience.” 

“So Peter’s not in as much danger as he said …” Theo held out hope.

“I’m afraid he is.” The veterinarian frowned slightly. “Even though I just said that Hales were a great family, Beacon Hills has seen the behavior of lycanthropes at their worst: murder and mayhem. I guarantee you most packs seek peace and security; they’d be horrified about what you’ve gone through. On the other hand, Peter, regardless of his motivations, murdered his niece for the alpha power. He resurrected himself using unscrupulous means. Then he worked with a hunter-turned-nagual to take power once again. He will not be welcome without Scott’s presence; they’ll assume, at the least, he’s after power once more.”

_“He is.”_

“Theo.” Scott sighed, reprovingly. He opened his mouth to say something and then waved it away. “You’ve been listening, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then if I forget some of the etiquette that Alan just taught me, you’ll remind me, right?”

Theo gritted his teeth. “Yes.” He felt Deaton watching him out of the corner of his eye.

Before they could continue, both of them heard Liam’s rattling old truck pull up outside. 

“Ready for the yelling?” Scott asked, trying to be light-hearted. 

“Oh, no, I’m staying in here.” Theo answered. “You get to tell him yourself, if you want to go so badly.”

“You’re supposed to be helping me!”

“I think it would be best if you told Liam alone,” Deaton suggested. “He’ll be calmer with just you.”

Scott lips twitched but he nodded. He felt his way out of the backroom. Deaton waited until he heard the front door bell ring. 

“I could tell that you wanted to speak to me.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Mr. Raeken, I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

Theo pushed himself off the wall and walked over until he got right in the older man’s personal space. “You were supposed to tell Scott that Peter’s whole plan was a terrible idea and that he should have nothing to do with it.”

“I couldn’t do that.”

“You’re the closest thing he has left to a father!” Theo ground out. “You should have told him he didn’t have to do it! You should have told him he should stay here and take care of himself!”

“While nothing would please me more, Theo, than telling Scott exactly that, I am, to my regret, not his father. I am his Emissary.” 

“Then tell him not to go as his Emissary!”

“That wouldn’t be good advice. The best thing for Scott and for his pack is if he finds a way to process the death of his parents. The best thing for Scott and for his pack is if he finds a way to adjust to his new physical state. He’s not going to do either of them by sitting in his house. Unless you can tell me that he’s not been replaying the past, looking for a better answer to something that has already occurred.”

Theo could do no such thing.

“I keep hearing about this is for his pack. His pack is doing just fine.” Theo sputtered. “You know what I mean. You also know that there’s a good chance that Peter is not only up to something, but also that Monroe will hear of what’s Scott’s doing and come after him.”

“Most likely.”

“How can you believe this is good for him?”

Deaton crossed his arms. “Have you ever read Mark Twain?”

“Oh, Goddamn it, not another analogy!”

The veterinary raised an eyebrow. “Twain said ‘If a cat sits on a hot stove lid, that cat won’t sit on a hot stove lid again. That cat won’t sit on a cold stove lid either. That cat just won’t like stoves.’”

The chimera clenched his fists. He imagined punching Deaton in the face. 

“Scott has sat on a hot stove lid. You know as well as I do he’s existed in a sort of limbo, stuck in the aftermath of what happened. My role is to remind him that he’s a human being and not a cat. He needs to move forward.”

“He needs to be alive!”

“There are worst fates than death, even for someone so young. The only reason he was able to move on after Allison Argent died in his arms was because he had to — he put that grief and recrimination aside in order to save Stiles from the nogitsune.”

“You’re a druid, not a psychic! You don’t know that Scott wouldn’t be just as fine here.”

“I know that in the last two and a half years, Scott has twice allowed guilt to impede his healing to such a degree that he almost died. Eating his meals in the room where his mother and father died, breathing in their scent, encountering the shared memories of lives now ended may not produce a blatant effect, but every moment will add up. I may not be able to smell chemo signals, but I don’t have to in order to understand the guilt he’s suffering. I have hardly been able to sleep myself, worrying about him.”

Deaton wasn’t lying; Theo listened to his heart. “But this? To go after Monroe with the man who’s tried to kill him twice?”

“So I should encourage him to remain alone at home with the man who succeeded?”

“That’s not fair! I’m …” Theo faltered. “I’m doing what I promised I’d do. I’m looking out after him.”

“And I have every confidence that you will continue to do so, no matter where he goes in this world.” Though his eyes indicated sadness, Deaton gave him a pleasant and knowing smile, indicating that this conversation was at an end.


	4. Chapter 4

There had been times when Theo had sat in an unused corner of whichever Operating Theater the Doctors were presently using and had watched bad eighties movies on an ancient television. It was important when he wasn’t needed to stay out of the way. Getting underfoot usually ended up being extraordinarily painful.

In these movies, there was frequently a shot of the protagonist (or the antagonist) standing on a balcony looking out over a metropolis. It was meant to represent power — either having it or wanting it. 

San Francisco spread out before Theo as he stood on a balcony far off the ground. Peter had insisted on getting a penthouse suite at the Four Seasons Hotel. From this vantage point, Theo could watch over the entire city and most of San Francisco Bay beyond it. The night was overcast so the only stars he could see had spilled out along the streets and across the water.

He raised his voice so the two werewolves deeper inside the suite could hear him. “Tell me what we’re doing here again.”

Peter had insisted on a suite large enough for each one of them to get their own room. The older werewolf had immediately disappeared into his, the master bedroom. At Theo’s call, he reappeared in a white jacket and a black bow tie. He looked quite dapper; it made Theo unreasonably angry.

“Why do you look like you’re auditioning for the role of Indiana Jones in a remake of The Temple of Doom?”

“It’s called style, Raeken. At some point you should make an effort to learn about it. You can’t dress like a member of the glee club forever.” Peter sniffed. “As for why we are in San Francisco, I’ve told you the reasons, none of which are up for discussion any longer.”

Theo raised his eyebrows to show his displeasure. Scott was still in his own part of the suite. 

“Tonight, I am going to go meet a few friends for dinner in a restaurant which, unlike the ones in Beacon Hills, actually has a decent wine list.” 

“Well, isn’t that fun for you?”

Scott finally came out of his own bedroom at that bit of sarcasm, his hand guiding him along the wall. 

“It will definitely be fun, as a matter of fact, but it will also be necessary. The people we need to meet here don’t do drop-ins.”

“So you’re meeting people that will help us meet other people. Who are the people you are meeting tonight?” Scott asked, finally entering the conversation. 

“I could take you to meet them if you want, alpha.” Peter’s face bore the slightest smirk, directed at Theo because he knew that Scott wouldn’t be able to see it. 

“For dinner?”

Theo mentally thanked the Doctors for not including a natural werewolf’s aggression response when they made him. He’d be punching Hale’s face right about now. 

“Yes. It’s as good an excuse as any.”

“It’s probably better I don’t go,” Scott said sadly. “We don’t want them to see me fumbling with my utensils.” 

“That wouldn’t be a wise idea.” Peter’s smirk grew by a millimeter. “I simply must get a move on. Don’t wait up.”

Before Theo could form a true objection, Peter was out the door. He turned to Scott angrily.

“He didn’t answer your question.”

“Huh?” Scott had reached one of the couches and sat down. 

“Peter. You asked him whom he was going to meet, and he didn’t answer you.”

“No, I guess he didn’t.”

Theo went to turn on the television in his frustration, but he knew what it would mean, so he changed direction and headed toward the room’s high-end stereo. He hadn’t watched television often, since he realized that Scott had yet to adjust to not being able to watch his favorite shows. “You don’t sound very worried.”

“I’m not. I have to trust Peter at least a little bit, or there’s no reason to go on this trip.”

Theo harrumphed and aggressively pushed buttons. He found a smooth jazz channel and let it go. 

“I know you don’t approve, but he didn’t smell like deception. He smelled excited.”

“No doubt.”

At the bitterness in Theo’s tone, Scott smiled. “I’m not expecting you to like him.” 

“That’s good, because I don’t.” Theo mumbled. “And I know you don’t like him either.”

The smile died on his face. “No.”

“Yet you give him all sorts of leeway.”

“I don’t have to like a person to understand them. I don’t have to like a person to listen to their advice.” Scott protested. “Are we going to have this fight every night?”

“Fight?” Theo turned around. “Are we fighting?”

Scott crossed his arms, his face turned toward the open balcony window. “It feels like we’re fighting.”

“It feels like to me that he’s trying to string us along, and you are so very right, I don’t like it. I know what will make me feel better though.”

“What?”

“We order room service.”

Scott scrunched up his nose. “How will that make you feel better?” 

“It’s on his tab.”

Theo found the dinner menu in one of the end table drawers. He sat down and read it out loud for both of them. “I think I’ll have the San Francisco Louis Salad and the 14-ounce Flannery Holstein Ribeye with chimichurri sauce and wild mushrooms.”

With a chuff, Scott shook his head. “Those are the two most expensive items on the menu.”

“Yup.” Theo grinned at him, but then it faded slightly. He had to remember that Scott would never be able to tell if he were smiling. “What do you want?”

Scott thought about it, racking his brain. “Read the appetizers again … no, I guess I’ll have what you’re having.”

“That’s the spirit!”

Plans made, both of them got up out of their seats. Theo pulled the dining table into the middle of the room and set up two chairs for it. Scott made his way slowly back to the bedroom, tripping over the unfamiliar floor only once. In a few minutes, he came back out with a book.

“What’s that?”

“It’s something Alan got for me. It teaches you Braille.” 

Theo craned his neck over the alpha’s shoulder. “How does it work?”

With a flourish Scott opened the book. The pages were thick, with an oversized collections of dots keyed running in parallel with shallow buttons. Scott touched one and a tinny speaker pronounced the letter A. “It’s like a children’s book, honestly.” 

“You have to start somewhere.”

“I guess.”

In the half hour it took the food to arrive, Scott had worked diligently on the exercises in the book. Theo watched from across the room as the recordings voiced first letters and then two-letter words. Eventually, Theo turned on the television but left it muted, watching CNN with subtitles. A Chinese spacecraft had soft-landed on the moon, the first craft to do so since 1976. The world spun on regardless of what was happening to people like them.

Theo found he couldn’t stop glancing over at Scott periodically, listening with one ear as the alpha went over the same exercises repeatedly. Scott tackled the book with no hint of self-consciousness about not being alone, which, for some reason he couldn’t fathom, made Theo glad. 

It wasn’t too terrible a way to end the first day on this fool’s journey.

**~*~**

“Well, this is different than the Four Seasons.” Theo peered around the warehouse. During the day, this building would be used to process cargo coming through the Port of San Francisco. At night, dirty and dark, it stood empty.

Scott tilted his head to the side. “There’s a smell I don’t recognize, and it’s the only thing I can smell. I should be able to get the ocean or the people waiting for us in here, but that scent is overpowering everything else.”

“It’s ink.” Peter observed in a voice far more reserved than normal.

The smell was indeed overwhelming, and Theo traced its source to a locked door. “Like … pen ink?”

“No,” Scott shook his head. “Not like that.”

“Hush, children.” Peter whispered, aggravated. “It’s ink for printing money, which is a topic that we absolutely do not wish to discuss with our hosts.”

A single sodium light buzzing to life in the corner of the warehouse drew the trio’s attention. It didn’t do much to illuminate the rest of the warehouse, but Theo was used to working in places with little to no illumination. He located two men sitting at a table and a very large man standing nearby; they were the only other people in the room. 

Scott swept the cane out in front of them to feel his way. Deaton had given him some basic lessons, and while he wasn’t very good with it most people wouldn’t be able to tell, which was the point after all. Theo walked behind him on his right and Peter followed on his left. 

“It’s been a long time.” The person who had been standing turned to face the trio. The intimidating man assumed a non-threatening stance, but he clearly was ready for anything. 

“I know that it sometimes seems that way to people my age,” Scott replied, “but even I don’t think two years is that long, Kincaid.”

The man’s eyes glowed electric blue, and Theo had to remind himself that being here was absolutely necessary. Peter had convinced Scott that it would be practical to make San Francisco their first stop on the tour. A number of supernatural individuals had attached themselves to the Yakuza, something which Theo was surprised to learn was an old practice for the criminal organization. The Yakuza had been founded from the lowest rungs of Edo Period society, a way for outcasts to organize themselves for protection and profit. Supernatural creatures had found the families a good place to hide and be accepted as Japan slowly modernized itself, and, in return, the Yakuza families hoarded them as secret weapons which they would employ for devastating effect when necessary.

“You wanted this meeting, so here we are.” Kincaid’s voice was low and smooth. “I consider my debt to you paid, Alpha McCall.”

Scott hadn’t realized until Peter had told him that sparing Kincaid after their struggle over the shugendo scroll had created an obligation from the beta to him. Which, Theo thought, was about as pure a Scott thing as possible.

“Thank you. I consider us even.” Scott had been coached by Peter and Theo on how to respond in a way that would show strength. His eyes glowed red, and as Deucalion’s once had, the light filled the entire orb of his eyes, not just the irises. “I may not know everything about you and your family, but I do know some things. May I greet your alpha?”

This was a planned tactic from the drive to the warehouse. When Peter proposed this meeting, Theo had observed that of the pack connected to the California branches of the Yakuza, the identity of the alpha was a deeply held secret. They would probably never meet him. 

“He was unable to come,” said one of the men sitting at the table. He was another blue-eyed beta, but he was also clearly of Japanese descent. “I am Ueda. This is Maruyama and you know Kincaid. I am empowered to speak for my alpha.” 

“I hope he is well,” Scott replied, exactly as Peter had suggested he respond. 

“What can we do for you, Alpha McCall?”

“You’ve heard what happened recently in Beacon Hills.” At their silence, Scott clarified. “I mean what happened most recently. Tamora Monroe has become the inheritor of the Argents' legacy, which includes their wealth, their armory, and their followers. Unlike a true Argent, she lacks a Code.”

“We’re aware of her threat.”

Peter leaned forward. “Alpha McCall is not content to let her do as she wills, especially considering what she did while she was in Beacon Hills.”

“Vengeance is something the Yakuza can understand,” Kincaid observed. “But we wouldn’t be interested in helping you pursue yours.”

“My advisor misspoke,” Scott said severely. This, too, had been practiced. “I haven’t changed my disdain for revenge, so this isn’t about what she did. It’s about what she intends to do. She has access to knowledge and resources that puts every supernatural person in the world in danger. She has to be neutralized.”

Ueda picked up a cigarette, slowly and deliberately, and lit it. Theo had smelt worse things in his life, so he didn’t react to the attempted provocation. Surprisingly, neither Scott nor Peter reacted either. 

“Why do you think we can be useful?”

“We don’t need you to come with us and hunt her down; we know you have your own responsibilities. What we’re asking of you is to keep an eye out —” Maruyama, who had up to this point been silent, chuckled. The realization that he had inadvertently joked about his own situation rattled Scott for just a second. He recovered as quickly as he could. “There are several reasons she might try to cross the Pacific, especially if we push her hard enough that she feels like she has to flee. She won’t be able to fly her armory across the ocean.”

“What you say is true.”

Peter finally spoke up in a conspiratorial tone. “We know you have people at every international port.”

“Do we?”

“Yes,” Peter said with confidence, but very clearly not to challenge him. “As the alpha said, we’re not asking you to fight our battles. We’re asking you to help us keep her bottled up.”

“What’s in it for us?”

Theo spoke, though this wasn’t a part of their practice. “Nothing.” Peter glared at him and Scott sighed softly. 

“Hmmm? Who is this?”

“This is …” Scott began, paused, and then restarted. “This is a member of my pack, Theo Raeken.”

Theo blinked. He had gone off book, he realized, so he shouldn’t be so shocked that Scott had gone off it as well. To Ueda, he flashed his eyes, but Scott’s announcement had so put him on the wrong foot that he forgot that doing so was a mistake. Unlike most other packs, the Yakuza preferred blue-eyed wolves. 

“When you’ve grown up,” challenged Ueda, “you’ll understand that it’s bad business to do something for nothing.”

“I probably will,” Theo responded in kind, “but I’m young enough to remember my lessons. I was taught that you don’t pay people to perform acts they would certainly do for free. Monroe will come for you sooner or later, and you will either fight her and her army as part of our effort, or you’ll fight them alone. I don’t know about you, but my life is worth more than what I could haggle out of Alpha McCall.”

The three werewolves across the table didn’t speak, but their eyes shifted to Scott. They wanted to see what the alpha’s words would be.

Scott looked up. “Is he wrong?”

It turned out that Theo was not wrong. However, Theo barely paid attention as the discussion came down to logistics. He was staring at the side of Scott’s head. He didn’t know how to feel about Scott’s support. It still puzzled him when they left the warehouse.

**~*~**

“So we are done? Did we get what we wanted?” Scott asked as he walked into the suite. He left the lights off, but Peter switched them on as he entered.

“Most likely, but we do have to give them a few days to process.” 

Theo agreed with Peter, as he closed the suite door behind them. While the three werewolves at the meeting had been empowered to speak for their pack and whoever the mysterious Yakuza alpha would be, they would still need to get the approval of that alpha. Then they needed to figure out how to sell it to the human leaders of their organization. It could take some time.

Scott paused in the middle of the room. “What are we going to do for these few days?”

“I have no idea.” Peter went directly to his room. “Personally, I am going to find some pleasant company for the evening. Beacon Hills may not be the sticks, but it’s not a metropolis. San Francisco has opportunities our home lacks.”

“You just went out last night!” 

The omega paused at the door to the master bedroom. “You may be an alpha, but you’re not really mine. And you’re certainly not my mother. Have fun tonight, boys. I will.”

Theo went to the refrigerator and took out a beer. He couldn’t get drunk, but it was the principle of the thing. He turned to find Scott still standing in the middle of the room. 

“Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Scott gritted out.

“You really have to practice your delivery. I haven’t believed you any single time you’ve said that since the Super Moon.”

“Why do you always bring that up?”

“Why are you getting so angry? Are you pissed off because Peter’s enjoying himself? You should get used to that. He’s going to profit by using your name. Didn’t I warn you that part of this would have to be something that benefited him?”

“Yeah. You’re so smart. Join the line.” 

“A line?”

“Of people who get to say I told you so.” Scott walked away from him. He was aiming for his private bedroom but, instated, he hit the middle of the wall between Theo’s room and his. After all, the suite was an unfamiliar place. With a growl, Scott corrected course and found a door. He slammed it behind him.

“That’s my room.” Theo meant it to come out as a poke at Scott’s attitude, but the snide remark died on his lips. Scott was angry with him for something; at least that this was the most likely explanation. He had only brought up the Super Moon …

Theo frowned over his beer. He didn’t know why he had brought it up. What had he been trying to prove? 

Left without an answer, he turned on the television. Criminal Minds. Theo rolled his eyes.

Peter came out of his room, showered and changed into something sophisticated. He was whistling a tune that Theo didn’t recognize. 

“Let me guess — don’t wait up?”

With a smile, Peter tipped an imaginary hat. “When you look this good …” He laughed. “Where is our fearless leader?”

“I think he’s lying down.”

“It’s not even midnight! I thought young people were up until all hours.” 

Theo flipped him off.

Peter’s smirk never faded. “Youth is wasted on the young. Then again, it’s not like you two are in any position to enjoy it.”

“Could you be a bigger horse’s ass?” 

“I’m sure I could. If you want my advice, test tube, you and Scott should man up and try to have some fun. This little dance routine you two got going on will get old real fast.”

“What … routine?”

Peter laughed like a sword through a watermelon. “You’re adorable and yet correct – don’t wait up.” Then he slinked out through the door.

Theo tried to put that jibe out of his mind. He tried to drink a beer that didn’t taste good and watch a program that didn’t interest him. Peter’s laugh taunted him. He couldn’t even go to bed because Scott was still in his goddamn room.

He knocked on the door. 

“Come in.”

Scott was lying on the bed, flat on his back, still dressed. 

“Hey.” Theo let his head fall back in shame at the lameness.

“This is your room.”

“Yeah.”

“I was too embarrassed to come back out.” 

“I guess you’re not really fine.”

“No.”

“I don’t know why I pressed you on that. Peter’s not doing anything too bad. He’s just going out.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you angry?”

“Because I’m an asshole.”

“Scott, you are most definitely not an asshole. If there is an asshole here, it’s me.”

The alpha shifted on the bed. “I feel like one. You know why I got angry at Peter?”

“’Cause he’s a dick?”

“Well, no. It’s because I wanted to go out. I wanted to go to a movie or a club or somewhere, but I can’t. Not anymore.”

Scott rolled up into a sitting position. 

“Well, that’s understandable —”

“It’s childish.” Scott balled his fists. “I’m not the only blind person in the world. I’m not the only blind person in California, even.”

Theo raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure they get angry—”

“But I shouldn’t. If I really need to, I don’t have to be blind. It’s not the clearest vision in the world, but it’s enough for me to do things they couldn’t dream about. And even when I don’t use the wolf’s eyes, my other senses are much better than any human’s. I’ve no right to be angry that I won’t be able to do something stupid like watch the new Godzilla movie.”

Scott’s voice was bitter and full of shame at the same time. Theo licked his lips. 

“Well, I know one thing. You’re being ignorant.”

“Huh?”

“Well, first, you’re acting as if there’s only one type of blindness — pitch black forever. There are blind people who can tell differences in light and there are people who can even track movement.”

“So?”

“Feeling guilty that you have it better than other people is not only silly, it may not be true. There are those considered legally blind who have better vision than you, and they don’t have to glow their eyes to do it.”

Scott seemed nettled. “So what’s your point?”

“My point is that since Jesus died for your sins two thousand years ago, there’s no need to crucify yourself, especially by insisting that you’re ungrateful because you’re not completely blind.”

Pushing himself off the bed, Scott stomped toward the door. He stopped, probably realizing that he was being childish again. 

“It’s also okay for you to be angry.” Theo said softly.

“It never has before.”

Now it was time for Theo to be lost. “What?”

Scott turned around and moved until he found the bed. 

“Is this about being a werewolf?”

“When I first became a werewolf, I realized that if I didn’t get a handle on my anger, I could hurt people. People I cared about. Ever since … everything … it’s been more of a struggle not to get angry at the littlest things. It’s why I had to do this trip. If I lost everything and it was all for nothing, one day soon I’m just going to snap.”

“Well, then it’s a good thing that it’s only me and Peter with you on this trip.”

“No, it’s not.” Scott frowned. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Theo felt a little warm inside. “I bet Peter could use an ass whippin’.”

“No.” Scott pushed him on the shoulder, like he was joking around. 

“Why don’t we go listen to the television? I can describe to you what’s happening. We can drink all the beer in the fridge.”

Scott looked at him and then nodded slowly. “Okay.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I absolutely make fun of _Teen Wolf_ 's use of the yellow filter in The Dark Moon (4x01) in this chapter. I have also placed La Iglesias in Sonora State. This is a highly improbable location for an Aztec temple, but it fits best with the shows general chronological hijinks.

Their waitress never actually reached dancing. It was impossible to really dance while serving food to the elderly couple sitting in the front window. She did move her hips in time with Prince Royce’s desire to give you a kiss. The pop song made the atmosphere inside the diner even brighter. 

“This is really good,” Scott announced once again before shoveling more cocido into his mouth. From his perch at the counter of this diner, he looked like any other high school graduate. It was only in the way he ate — making sure his utensil reached the bowl without spilling the meal required him to move with deliberation — and in the sunglasses he wore inside which indicated how different he was. “I mean, really, _really_ good.”

Theo couldn’t help but steal glances at his charge from the next stool. He had already finished his shrimp ceviche and was nursing a beer. He wasn’t in a rush; it only made sense that Scott would be slower at eating. “You sound like you haven’t had Mexican food before.”

“I have and I haven’t. All the restaurants in Beacon Hills are Tex-Mex.”

“You’re not one of those Mexican food snobs, are you?”

Scott didn’t answer while he had another bite of food in his mouth. “No. I like Tex-Mex, too. But it’s different, and sometimes different is good.”

“Yeah.” Theo rolled his eyes at the banality of his response. It was one of the prices of spending so much time with Scott; the alpha would eventually realize that Theo wasn’t really the First Chimera twenty-four seven. Sometimes, he was just an eighteen-year-old boy with not enough words and not enough experiences with real life to hold a decent conversation.

He shook himself. He had been feeling sorry for himself, and there was truly nothing to get depressed about.

Mexico had turned out to be so much different than what he thought it would be. The Doctors hadn’t ever had an operating theater in the country, so this was his first visit. The sky was as blue as it was in California. The buildings were maybe only twenty to thirty years older on average than the ones in downtown Beacon Hills. The city simply looked different because, as it was situated on top of a mesa, space was at a premium. 

Scott finally finished his cocido and dug into his wallet to pay the bill. 

“You have enough cash? I don’t think they’ll accept American money here. It’s not really a touristy area.”

The alpha held up a black Visa card. 

“Peter?”

“Apparently, he absolutely wants me to trust him.”

Theo frowned as he waved down the waitress.

“I know that you’re frowning. I don’t entirely trust him, and I’ve told you that before. I hope we don’t have to have this conversation _forever._ ”

The waitress came by with the check and between them, Theo and Scott knew enough Spanish to settle the bill. As she went to ring it up, they waited in silence. Theo fidgeted. 

“Stop it.”

“We’ll have the conversation until I think you’re taking it seriously.”

Scott sighed. 

“I’m supposed to watch over you. If there was an open manhole in front of you, you’d expect me to stop you from stepping into it, right?”

“Sure.”

“Peter is an open manhole.” Theo stood up. “Come on. Topic change. I want to take you somewhere.”

They left the diner, with Theo guiding Scott by the sleeve. They walked at a slow, leisurely pace, as they had nowhere to be anytime soon. Scott’s head slowly tilted back as they traveled, angled so the late afternoon light fell directly on his face. He looked peaceful. Theo almost tripped before he started paying attention to the path in front of them.

“It’s a weird thing.”

“What is?” Theo asked, nodding to a couple passing by on the street next to them. 

“I’m aware of things now more than I was before. Like the position of the sun in the sky.” 

Theo hummed. 

“It feels different on my skin when it’s directly overhead then when it’s in front of me or behind me. Deucalion called it thermoperception.”

“You’ve been practicing.”

“I have to, don’t I? But it’s a different way of thinking about the world, and as I said before, sometimes different is good.”

“Then you’re really going to like this.” Theo guided Scott through the door of their destination.

“Whoa.”

“Yeah.” To human noses, the atmosphere in tobacco shops were unique and some people found them delightful. To the enhanced noses of people like them, they were like finding buried treasure. Theo had to fight the urge to stick his head into a nearby humidor. 

“I’ve never been in a place like this before, Theo. Thank you.”

The clerk eagerly drew their attention and Theo, in broken Spanish, explained they were simply looking so far. With gestures, he pointed out Scott’s handicap and the clerk nodded conspiratorially.

Scott seemed drawn to a particular glass canister of pipe tobacco. “It smells like alcohol.”

“They sometimes infuse the pipe tobacco with rum. This one is called, if I’m translating it right, Sunset Rum.”

“I wonder how it tastes.”

“We could buy some.”

“And do what with it?”

Theo chuckled. “They sell pipes here as well.”

Scott looked a little offended. “Smoking is bad for you!”

“Boy scout.”

“I wasn’t a boy scout!”

“I call shenanigans. Smoking may be bad for you, but it’s also pleasurable. It’s a tradeoff. Everything in life is a tradeoff.” Theo cajoled. “Do you want to try it?”

“I’ll pass.”

Theo bought a lighter so they hadn’t wasted the time of the clerk and then stepped outside. The sun had just started to brush the tops of the buildings. He hesitated but finally glanced at the clock. It was almost time for Scott’s appointment.

“Is there any chance I can talk you out of this?” 

“I’m going to be fine, Theo.”

“Last time you visited her she tortured you with electricity.” 

“She was testing me.”

“Is that what she called it?” Theo snorted. “So, we’ve got to find a place for me to change.”

“Do you really want to do this?”

Theo chuckled. “Why not? I’ve been keeping my eye out; we haven’t been made yet.”

“It’s humiliating for both of us,” Scott complained. “I’m not helpless.”

“The Calaveras may be reduced in their circumstance, but they’re still a hunting family. They refused to guarantee Peter’s safety within a hundred miles of their city. She was willing to meet with you, but she certainly has enough motivation to make her name on your corpse.”

“Araya’s not a nice woman, but she’s not a liar.” 

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t trust her enough to leave you alone with her.” They found an alley with no windows where they couldn’t be seen from the street. Theo discarded his jacket, pulled off his shirt and started taking off his shoes. “She may have heard of me, but I doubt she’ll have heard of what I can do.”

“I doubt it.” Scott pulled out a series of buckles and a harness from the pack he carried. 

Theo, now completely nude, stuffed his clothes into his own backpack and hid them behind a dumpster. Then he got down on his hands and knees. “It’ll work. Trust me.” He transformed into a coywolf and stood there while Scott managed to get the harness on him. 

Voila! Instant seeing-eye dog. 

**~*~**

Araya eyed Theo, lying on the floor next to Scott’s chair. Theo looked up at her, playing the role of a big dumb dog.

“I would not have believed it, Lobito.”

Scott had his hands folded in front of him. “What’s so difficult to believe?”

The older woman took a seat across from him. “I had not thought that there was an injury from which an alpha like you would not be able to heal yet still live.”

“So you thought Deucalion was a liar?”

“I thought he was an anomaly.” She smirked at Scott, and Theo fought off the urge to growl at her. 

“Regardless, I’m not trying to deceive you. I’ve been blinded, and unless I find a friendly darach, I’m not going to get better.” 

“You aren’t expecting me to think you’re harmless then, do you, Lobito?”

Severo and Ximena, farther back in the room, made noises to make sure Scott knew they were present and armed. 

“No, I don’t. In fact, I’m hoping you don’t underestimate me. I hope you wonder why I would come here, especially since I know who you are, and I know what you can do.”

“The thought has crossed my mind.” Araya leaned back in the chair, folding her hands into her lap. She was relaxed; her heart rate was steady and calm.

“How much have you heard of what happened in Beacon Hills?”

“Whispers and rumors. None of them good.” Her voice was sour. “That man exposed the supernatural world to the general public in violation of the Code, both the traditional version and the new version his granddaughter proposed.”

Scott’s muscles tightened beneath his clothes. “I’m not trying to argue with you, but I don’t understand why that would violate the Code.”

“We’re Hunters.” Araya said it with all the depthless pride she possessed. “We hunt monsters who would kill innocents if they were allowed to roam freely. We kill them and only them. We don’t gather secular power. We don’t use amateurs as our foot soldiers and definitely not as cannon fodder. To do this … “

Theo smelled her rage. If he could, so could Scott.

“My family has lived and trained and suffered over centuries for this. It is not a job — it is a calling. What happened in your home was a mockery of what we stand for.”

“He was only able to do so because the Anuk-Ite amplified fear. Most of the people who joined Gerard returned to their homes when my pack removed the creature’s influence.”

“Do you ever wonder, Lobito, if those people were simply waiting for something like this creature to give them permission to act like an unruly mob?”

“Deucalion said much the same thing.”

Coywolves couldn’t laugh, or Theo would have done so. He smelled the fury and revulsion that poured off the Calaveras leader when she was compared to the Demon Wolf. 

“He was wrong, and you’re wrong, too. Are normal people afraid of werewolves? Oh, yeah. They’re also afraid of car wrecks, of public speaking, and of forgetting to put on their pants in the morning. There’s a difference between being afraid of what might hurt you and attacking someone because it might hurt you. The Anuk-Ite made them lose their perspective, and Gerard and Monroe took advantage of that. Most people don’t go looking to kill what scares them.”

Araya hooded her eyes. “Gerard disgraced his family. The Argent name is forever tarnished.”

Scott took in a deep breath. Theo couldn’t help himself, he whined. Araya, like any good hunter, knew her enemy’s weakness.

“No.” The alpha’s voice was so low that it was almost subsonic. The two hunters in the room cocked their shotguns in response to his tone, but for her part, Araya remained complacent.

“Do I anger you, Lobito?”

“I won’t let the Argent name … I won’t let Allison’s name or Chris’s name … be tarnished by Gerard and Kate. While I could still read, I learned all about their family and its legacy of sacrifice and vigilance. Allison died trying to save her best friend. Chris died saving the human members of my pack. They died embodying their Code, and I won’t let you say otherwise.”

Araya must have noticed the glow in Scott’s eyes and the fangs that had dropped, but she remained infuriatingly calm. After a moment, she gestured for Severo and Ximena to stand down.

“You are right. I apologize. Perhaps I am simply embarrassed by the fact that Kate escaped our clutches to do so much damage.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

Theo watched Araya’s eyebrows crawl up her face.

“When push came to shove, you did your duty. I was there. I know how many people you lost that day. I never hold other people responsible for what the bad guys do.”

The room fell silent as the woman contemplated what Scott had said. Finally, she chuffed. “Why are you here?”

“I’m going to take down Monroe. I need your help.”

“Go on.”

“My plan is simple. I’m going to gather the wolf packs of the western United States and we’ll wear her down until she has nowhere else to go. Then I’m going to capture her ...“

“Realmente, Lobito?”

“Yes. We’re going to capture her, if we can.”

“And then what are you going to do with her?”

“She’ll pay for her crimes.” Scott answered. “I have someone who can testify that she ordered her people to shoot up my home. There’s forensic evidence that I can use to connect her to the deaths she caused, including killing a federal agent, which is a big deal.”

“I’ve heard stories about your reluctance to kill—”

“That’s not it,” Scott cut her off angrily. “I don’t want to martyr her. I don’t want to go through all this effort simply for her most reliable lieutenant to take over after she’s gone. If she’s tried in a federal court and she’s held in a federal jail, then she stops being a hero to them and becomes a criminal.”

“I have to point out that she killed your parents. That must burn you, deep in your soul.”

Scott froze as if he had been turned to stone. Theo got up off the ground by reflex.

After a very tense moment, Scott spoke again. “I thought you didn’t know what went on.”

“I said I had heard whispers. One of those whispers was how Christopher Argent died and who he died with. Do you expect me to believe you would show mercy to this woman?”

“You weren’t listening — “

“I listen very well, Lobito. You’re not doing this alone, and you must be aware there is a chance that you cannot make the case and she goes free. She would be untouchable to your vengeance then, on the federales’ radar. So if your plan fails, she’ll live, having gotten away with the blood of the people who bore you on her hands. You want to discourage her followers? I think that if you tore her to shreds and placed her head upon your sacred tree, it would send a very similar message.”

“That’s not me.” Scott said loudly, but there was a tremor in his voice. “That will never be me.”

“Even if I demand it? Gerard may not have taught her the Code, but she has certainly broken it. Even if the packs demand it? She has killed many supernatural creatures, including children.”

Scott paused; his heart rate spiked and then smoothed out. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. All I know is that she has to be stopped, and I need you to help me do it.”

“Fair enough. Tell me how I can help you.”

Scott outlined the plan that Peter had proposed and all three of them had developed. Much like the Yakuza were meant to cut Monroe off from retreating across the Pacific with her forces intact, the Calaveras would be responsible for the southern border. They would use their connections among the coyotes (human traffickers, not were-creatures) and the police on both sides of the border to intercept her should Monroe fleet to the south. 

“I can do this, but first you must do something for me, Lobito.”

“What?” 

“Return to La Iglesias.”

“Why?”

Araya shook her head. “You’ll know why when you get there.” 

**~*~**

Severo dropped Scott off on the outskirts of the destroyed village. The hunter had made Theo ride in the back of the truck, pointing out that Scott as an alpha werewolf was more than safe in close quarters with him, disabled or not disabled, and he didn’t want the cab of his new Ford F-150 to smell like dog. Theo suspected that Araya and Severo had always known he was a transformed shifter, but for some reason they played along with the deception.

Scott stood where the gravel road stopped and the ruins began. “How will I get back?”

“I’ll come and pick you up in the morning. If you’re still alive.” Severo chuckled grimly.

“What?”

“A little joke. A big strong monster like you should be fine.” With that, the Calaveras lieutenant drove away. 

Scott stood until he couldn’t hear the truck anymore, Theo waiting beside him. The alpha took a pair of shorts and some cheap sandals out of his backpack. He reached out his hand and Theo put his nose in it, allowing Scott to feel around and undo the guide harness. 

Theo transformed back into human form and quickly slipped into the shorts and the shoes. “I think they knew who I was.”

“Maybe.”

“Why didn’t they do anything?”

“Because that’s how Araya hunts.” Scott started to walk in the direction of the town, though he headed directly toward a ruined wall. “You don’t let the prey catch your scent or know your location, or they’ll run away before you can catch them.

“So what’s this?” Theo steered him gently down the street.

“I not sure.” Scott remarked sadly. “I’m guessing it’s a test of some kind. She likes those.”

The years had not been kind to the buildings surrounding the church. Theo could only guess what they had been before the earthquake. That one might have been someone’s home. That one might have been a store. That one might have been a stable. He had no idea how old this village really was nor how long ago it had been overtaken by disaster. The ruins had become unmoored in time, their decay no longer dependent on the passing of the years.

Above them all stood the church, like a mausoleum in a graveyard. He could see the bell, cracked and tarnished, hanging in its tower. They headed inexorably toward it.

“You remember the way?”

“Hmmm?” Scott had been far away.

“Once I got you on a road, you seem to remember the way to the church.”

“I’ve only been here twice. I don’t remember the details.”

“But you’re heading straight toward it.”

“Am I?” Scott seemed far too blasé about the phenomenon.

His attitude unsettled Theo but not as much as the aura surrounding the church did. Memories of unpleasant sensations shot up his arms and centered on his chest. The whole place reminded him of the Skin-Walkers and their terrible lesson.

“It’s strange,” Theo said aloud, trying to change the topic in his own mind. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Why would being built on top of an Aztec temple keep the church up?”

“I remember it’s not in that great of shape.”

“It’s nowhere near as bad as every other building.”

“Maybe the way it was built made it more stable.” Scott answered. “Maybe Tezcatlipoca protected it.”

Theo snorted. 

“You don’t like that answer?”

“I’m an atheist.”

The answer stopped Scott in his tracks. He was beginning to get the hang of not turning to look at people. “Really? Huh.”

It didn’t sound like Scott was condemning him, but he obviously didn’t agree. “And you believe?”

“Of course I believe. I’ve seen a werewolf resurrect himself from being burnt alive and having his throat ripped out. I’ve been tortured by a thousand-year-old fox spirit. I’ve struggled against an army of undead extra-dimensional horsemen who devour souls. You think it’s outrageous that I believe in God?”

“I think those things should probably make you less likely to believe in God. Why would a benevolent deity let them happen?”

“I look at it differently. A benevolent deity has to let them happen.”

Now it was Theo's turn to stop in his tracks, which didn’t go unnoticed by Scott. 

“Every single time someone has tried to trick me, to bully me, to blackmail me, or to force me into doing what they wanted, in the end, what they wanted was either selfish or cruel or both. Every single time someone has truly tried to guide me, to help me, to comfort me, they always gave me a choice, even if my choice was a fuck up. I think it’s pretty reasonable to assume that any benevolent deity would need to do the same.”

Scott entered the church itself, sliding through the door half off its hinges. Theo followed after a moment. The terrible feeling of this place intensified. Goosebumps rose on his skin. He felt exposed and vulnerable. 

“I guess I’m different. Everything can be explained without resorting to some Big Spaghetti Monster in the Sky.”

Once again, Scott didn’t seem offended. “Maybe religion isn’t about getting an explanation. Maybe it’s about coping with them. Something, somewhere, decided I was worthy enough to be a True Alpha, that I had the strength of character – whatever that means -- for that responsibility.”

“Maybe it’s just part of being a werewolf.”

“What’s virtuous? Virtue depends on the culture. Virtue depends on the era. How does that get passed down in a Bite? I was bitten by a werewolf focused on revenge, which the Hales taught me was so important to our kind they have a symbol for it. He needed me for that revenge, yet I defied the alpha. Is that virtuous or not?”

“The universe balances …”

Scott headed down the aisle between the collapsed pews. “A sentient force we call the Universe which makes the intricate judgments about what the Balance is. God has many names. We’re supposed to go down through that stairway.”

If Theo thought leaving the dilapidated Catholic Church and entering the temples was supposed to make him feel better, he was very truly wrong. In a maze of darkened columns, he could see cobwebs, scorpions, a maze of networks, and little else. 

“What happened to you here?”

“Don’t you know? I thought that the Doctors did a very through report on everything I’ve been through.”

“Not this place.”

Scott stopped with one hand on a column. “Why not?”

“Their equipment couldn’t …” Theo sighed. “They couldn’t see here.”

“Probably has nothing to do with it being a temple.” Scott joked as he walked into another chamber. Somehow, the moon shown through the ceiling even though there was no corresponding opening outside. In the center, bathed in its life, was an altar adorned with skulls and bone knifes. Scott headed right for it. 

“Scott.” Theo swallowed heavily.

“This is where she turned me into a Berserker.” Scott touched the stone, running his hands on it. “Where _they_ turned me into one. Where I beat Peter.” 

“Did you?” Theo asked. He meant it to be flippant, to make himself feel less anxious, which was ridiculous. There was no one else here. 

Scott turned sharply in Theo’s direction. His eyes began to glow red. 

“I didn’t mean anything …” Theo started lamely.

The transformation slowly came over Scott as he stood there, skin darkening, claws coming out, eyes like two burning embers in a black pit.

Theo took a step back.

Scott slammed his fist down on the altar. Theo heard the stone splintering. Or was it bones? The alpha followed it with another and another. These weren’t tentative blows but the full strength that he could muster. Stone chips went flying into the air, the temple rocked. Cracks shot through the stone, though the altar was one solid piece of granite.

Minutes passed and Theo didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what had triggered Scott’s anger. Finally, Scott stopped and slumped down, leaning up against the stone of the altar, exhausted.

“Are you all right?”

“I broke my hands.” Scott let them flop uselessly in front of him. “They’re healing, though.”

“What happened?”

“It _was_ a test.”

Theodore came and sat down next to him. He wanted to take Scott’s hands, perhaps take the pain, but when he touched it, the alpha snatched them away.

“Araya wanted to remind me of the price.”

“The price of what?”

“She’s never believed that werewolves could ever be anything but angry, murderous beasts. She wanted to remind me that I’m one of them. And I could have been. It would have been easy to gut Gerard when he was trapped in that retirement home, bleeding black all over the place. To rip out Peter’s throat when the Einstein-Rosen Bridge had burned him to an inch of his life. To hurt Jennifer until she stopped threatening my mom, to make Stiles swallow those words about how perfect I’m supposed to be, to beat Liam into submission.”

Theo knew that Scott wouldn’t say it, but his name could easily be coming off his lips. “You wouldn’t do those things.”

“But I could’ve. I’m not special, Theo. I feel rage. And resentment. And fear. It costs me a lot to hold it in. Araya wanted to remind me of that. I’m not special at all.”

Theo didn’t speak, but he didn’t agree, either.


	6. Chapter 6

Scott’s mistake was asking for the potato salad. 

In the scope of world history, it wasn’t a mistake on the level of Hitler invading Russia, but it was as avoidable. Theo thought Scott had been doing very well, talking animatedly with the members of the pack which they were visiting. Scott had managed to exude an air of competence, as if being surrounded by werewolves he didn’t know was no big deal. Theo had been sitting quietly next to him, keeping an eye on the situation and ready to intervene. Peter sat across them, easily drawing attention away from Scott when it looked like a topic might go over a recent high-school graduate’s head.

When Scott asked for someone to pass the potato salad, which happened to be in a bowl right in front of him, Prentiss Abell dumped it in Scott’s lap. “Maybe you can smell it now,” he sneered. 

It would have been comical though a little mean, if the situation hadn’t been so fraught with danger. Scott reacted well. He turned his head slightly as he brushed the food off his pants. “That wasn’t nice.” 

Everyone, including Theo, frozen in their seats at the open challenge. Theo, instead of watching Scott and his challenger, shifted his eyes toward Arthur Abell, sitting at the head of the table. The man’s perpetual smile never wavered, but he did not speak or move to intervene

“It’s not nice to come into my family’s home and act like a beggar,” Prentiss sneered. “Especially when you have to beg for help that comes down to cleaning up a mess you were unable to take care of yourself.” 

People who weren’t aware of the truth behind the Abell Pack would assume that Arthur – the very image of a cowboy-hat wearing, loud-talking Texan big shot – was the alpha. They would be wrong. Arthur Abell was rich, powerful, and influential, but he was only a beta. The real alpha of the pack was Millicent ‘Milly’ Abell, sitting to Arthur’s right, hand over her mouth and eyes averted as if she were scandalized by her son’s behavior. Milly had been raised in a good Christian family and embodied all the decorum and out-of-date cultural norms of the worst of Southern stereotypes, so she never acted unfriendly, never spoke out of turn, and never openly contradicted her husband.

She was also, completely and undeniably, in charge of everything that was happening in the room, from where people had sat to what food they ate. Undoubtedly, she was also behind the challenge that had just been made.

Prentiss was her third son out of four boys and the sixth child out of eight all told. Every single one of them was present at this dinner, supposedly held in Scott’s honor, in the main barn of their enormous ranch nestled right smack in the middle of Texas Hill Country. Each child had brought with them their spouses and their children, filling two long tables set up in the barn. 

Family could not be more important to the Abells. With care and deliberation, Milly had married six of her children to prominent members of every other significant pack in the state. If a Texan werewolf hadn’t ever visited her at her home or shared the bonds of pack with one of her children, they were most likely desperate omegas.

She had also added a half-dozen bitten wolves to her pack. Each one brought with them influence in a particular sphere: politics, finance, industry, or the occult. Even her Emissary hailed from the Apache-Jumanos tribe. The indigenous woman was a formidable scholar in her own right with a lineage that stretched back to long before white men had even set foot on the shores of the continent. Her emissary may might very well have been the only person in the world who could convince Milly that she was ever wrong. 

Theo was absolutely sure that Prentiss’s behavior had been planned by the alpha in order to take Scott’s measure before she committed her influence to helping him stop Monroe. He wished there were some way he could advise Scott about this, but there wasn’t. It was up to the alpha to make the connections on his own.

Sitting across from Scott, Peter looked like he wished he could whisper in the alpha’s ear just as much as Theo could. 

“It’s a waste of good food.”

Prentiss hammed it up spectacularly. “Probably, sir, but it proved my point, didn’t it?” 

Placing his napkin down easily, Scott stood up and pushed his chair back, the remains of the salad falling to the ground. “I’m frequently accused of being slow on the uptake. What was your point again?”

“We’re treating you like an honored guest, when what you are is a crippled loser who needs our help to finish off his enemies.”

“Your parents, Mr. Abell, were very gracious in their invitation. They didn’t seem to mind hosting me.” Scott pushed his chair in.

“Charity is a virtue, or so they always taught me.” Prentiss rose and mirrored Scott’s action. 

No one else at the table spoke, but they all looked to the end of the table where Arthur and Milly sat. Theo caught Peter’s gaze. He smirked, as if none of this mattered, but that smirk didn’t reach his eyes. 

Scott’s eyes began to burn red behind the glasses. “So it is. I would like an apology.” 

“An apology?”

“For your rudeness.”

“Maybe you should apologize to my parents for wasting their time and bringing a crazy omega and a freak of science to their table.” Prentiss glanced at his parents, and seemed emboldened by their lack of reaction. If there was a secret cue, Theo didn’t spot it.

Scott sighed. Then his hand shot out and grabbed Prentiss by the throat. He lifted him up with one hand, demonstrating the strength only an alpha possessed. 

The attending members of the family had all been quieted by the confrontation, watching carefully. They remained still, but their eyes began to glow in response to the violence. 

“I hate this bullshit,” Scott said firmly. “But if I have to posture and demonstrate how badass I am to get your cooperation, then I really don’t have any choice, do I? Because you’re right, I need your help to clean up a mess I helped make. I’d rather talk you into it, but I’ll do what’s necessary.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Theo saw Milly put her hand on her husband’s arm in the smallest of gestures.

“Well, now,” Arthur suddenly drawled, “this all ain’t necessary.”

Scott put Prentiss down on the ground.

“Son, why don’t you apologize to our guest?”

Prentiss rubbed at his throat and stepped back, eyes blazing gold. “I’m sorry.”

The glow of Scott’s eyes behind the sunglasses didn’t face. “Apology accepted.” He turned and pulled his chair out. “I would like to have more of that potato salad, if I may.”

Millie Abell stood up. “I would be delighted to get you some more.”

And all that was left after that were the details.

**~*~**

Theo closed his eyes just for a moment. They were on their way back to Dallas. For something as innocuous as a banquet, he was as exhausted as if he had just fought two Beasts of Gevaudan. It didn’t help that Peter’s vehicle, while monstrously expensive, was a sports car with an uncomfortable back seat.

The dinner at the Abell’s turned out to be a success, but they certainly had had to work for it. In the peace of the car and the soothing sound of the classical music that Peter liked so much, Theo felt the tension drain from his body.

Apparently, Scott must have been feeling tired as well. He rested his head up against the window. 

Peter finally broke the silence. “I have to say, Scott, you surprised me.”

“Did I?”

“I didn’t think casual violence was in your repertoire. Don’t be shocked, but I’m not teasing. You did exactly what was needed.”

Scott grunted and let his head fall back against the window.

Peter smirked as he continued to drive.

“As much as I hate to say it,” Theo added, because he had learned that as much as Scott hated to be riled up by Peter, he hated to be praised by him even more, “Peter is right.”

“I frequently am.”

Theo grimaced. “No one could doubt your intent to do good, Scott, but the alpha needed to make sure you had the will to back up your good intentions.”

“Something that after hearing rumors of your gentle nature, she might have doubted.” Peter couldn’t help himself.

“You know, Peter, for all you act like you understand me,” Scott began without lifting his head, “you don’t really understand me at all. I’m not surprised, because you’ve never understood the difference between shouldn’t and couldn’t. I was always capable of violence, even casual violence. Do you know how many times after you came back from the dead that I just wanted to punch the smirk right off your face?”

“Oh?” The thought clearly amused Peter.

“Remember when you poked at me at Derek’s while we were planning an assault on Deucalion? That I never get tired of being blandly moral? I wanted to clock you right in the face so hard you’d swallow a couple of teeth. But working together to stop the Alpha Pack was more important.”

“Thus proving my point in its entirety.” The older werewolf chuckled. “How did you manage to pull off such an out-of-character feat so convincingly?”

“You can’t take the credit for this one. I was able to do it because of Theo.”

“Me?”

Scott nodded, slowly. “I figured out what Milly Abell was looking for, so instead of doing what I felt was right, I did what she expected me to want to do.”

Theo didn’t know why, but that admission made him feel a little nauseous. Yes, he had done something like that; it was his forte, honestly. In the past, he had pretended to be exactly what Scott had needed. It was history — unchanged and unalterable. So why was he upset? 

That Scott still thought of him like that bothered him a great deal. He couldn’t manage to hide his discomfort, and that made both Peter and Scott look back, either due to chemo signals or heart rate. Thankfully, neither of them said anything to him, then or for the rest of the ride, like it had been forgotten.

Only it wasn’t. 

When they got back to the Dallas hotel, Peter hurried up back to the suite. Theo couldn’t leave Scott, though, because it would take to long for him to navigate this unfamiliar space. He would probably get lost in the parking garage. Scott dawdled getting out of the car.

“I’m sorry.” 

“No problem. You must be tired.”

“No, Theo.” Scott paused, listening to something distant. “I’m sorry for bringing … everything up.”

“Oh, no problem.”

“It is a problem. It’s a very big problem.” Scott insisted. “I hurt your feelings. I didn’t mean to, but I did.”

Theo queried, even though he did feel better. “You didn’t mean to?”

“I really was trying to hurt Peter’s feelings. He likes to think himself as sort of spider sitting in the middle of a web, manipulating everything. I wanted to remind him that I have more former enemies than just him.” Scott tried to make it a joke. “And you know that, right?”

“I know …?”

“That I don’t think of you like an enemy. I haven’t thought of you like that for a long time.” 

“A long time?” Theo would have taken back the doubt in his own voice if he could.

“Ever since Liam told me how you helped him against the Wild Hunt. Being the bait.”

Theo was glad that Scott couldn’t see his embarrassment and he hoped Scott’s own awkwardness would cover its scent. “He told you about that?”

“He told me everything. That’s when I knew.”

Theo tried to end the conversation by steering Scott towards the motel room, but it seemed that the alpha wasn’t going to let it go. 

“It’s easy to be helpful when it costs you nothing. That’s how I know that even now, Peter hasn’t really changed. He isn’t trying to kill me, but only because there’s nothing in it for him. I have no doubt that if this mission got too dangerous, he’d find somewhere else to be really fast. But when you stepped in front of that elevator, you could have lost everything, and the only person who saw you do it was Liam.”

Stammering, Theo hit the button for the elevator. 

“I’m not trying to embarrass you, Theo.”

“I’m not embarrassed!” 

Scott lifted both eyebrows up over his sunglasses. “I’m standing right next to you. I can smell it. I can hear your heart.”

“Okay.” 

“It’s a good thing.”

“I didn’t do it to be a good thing! I did it because I didn’t want you and Liam to lock me up anymore! I didn’t want you and Liam to treat me like I was thirty seconds from stabbing you in the back. It was selfish.”

Scott laughed. It was a genuine, pleased laugh. “If you say so.”

“I do!”

Standing there next to each other, Scott reached over and grabbed Theo by the shoulder. He didn’t say anything else, but his hand was warm through Theo’s clothes.

They reached the suite before Theo felt the need to break the awkward silence with a sarcastic joke. He was glad there was a surprise waiting for him behind the door. One that made the conversation vanish.

While they were gone, the entire Hale Clan had arrived: Derek, Braeden, Cora, and Malia. A smile burst out over Scott’s face. “Oh my God!”

Malia reached out her hand to Derek. “Told ya. Now pay up.”

“What are you guys doing here?” 

Derek stood up. “We heard about your trip.”

“From whom?” Scott took a few steps into the room, eagerly. Theo waited by the door, closing it behind them. “Of course, Stiles told you. You didn’t have to come all this way—”

“We did and we didn’t,” Braeden added. “We actually have another reason to be here.”

“Oh? It’s nothing bad, I hope.”

“We’re attending a rancher convention.” Derek and Braeden had decided that they wanted to have a place to settle down, so they had purchased a cattle ranch in Argentina, near where Cora was living. “It’s just as dull as you think it would be, but it helps to have contacts in the industry.”

Cora muttered. “Or so you’ve been told.” 

“Or so we’ve been told.” 

Peter emerged from his room. “They decided to stop by and visit, unannounced.” Theo couldn’t quite be sure if Peter was happy or mad about it.

“Lighten up, pops. We’re here to party.” She walked over and wrapped an arm around Scott. “So, let’s party.”

**~*~**

“Whose idea was this again?” Theo asked, raising his voice and enunciating clearly in order to be heard over Icona Pop.

“You’re not going to believe this, but it was Derek’s.” Scott answered him.

“Why wouldn’t I believe that?”

Scott laughed, mostly at himself, though the sound was culled by a particularly strong baseline. “I forgot. You didn’t know him. He’s a lot more … _fun_ nowadays.”

Theo looked over to where Braeden and Cora were unsuccessfully trying to get the older werewolf to dance like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, though it didn’t fit the music at all. Derek was being difficult on purpose, pretending he couldn’t do the moves and protesting loudly. The women were trying to swivel his hips for him, with any member of the trio breaking out in uproarious laughter from moment to moment.

Theo had to look away. “He certainly seems fun.”

“I think he did this for me,” Scott moved away from the loudest part of the club. “I think that’s the real reason they came here.”

“Save you from the villains?”

“Eh. Save me from myself, probably.”

From the smile on Scott’s face, Theo wagered that Derek had succeeded. 

Suddenly, someone grabbed him roughly from behind. Yelping, he turned to see a determined-looking Malia. 

“Don’t hit me!”

“Oh, please. I haven’t hit you in … months.” Malia replied. “I wouldn’t do it in public, anyway.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

She grinned nastily. “Scott, I’m borrowing Theo. You’ll be fine, right?”

“Uh, sure.” Scott answered, eyebrows raising in confusion. 

“Great!” Malia started dragging Theo towards the door.

“Where are we going?”

“Outside. I don’t want to have to shout over the music.”

“Maybe I don’t want to go outside with you.”

The werecoyote shook him like he was a rabbit she had caught in the bush. “I didn’t ask, did I?” Contrary to his initial estimation, Malia, after absorbing her mother’s powers, wasn’t stronger than Scott or even Liam. She was about as strong as he was, but she was more comfortable, more natural, in using that strength than anyone. One of the first things Scott had learned was how to hold back. Liam was always terrified of his own rage. It had been beaten into Theo by the Doctors that his strength had to be precise and hidden until necessary. The forest had taught Malia other lessons.

The outside patio was empty. While it was Dallas, it was also January. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” 

“Talking to you on the patio, where you dragged me.”

Malia eyes glowed blue. “Don’t play cute with me.”

“I’m not playing. I am cute.”

“You know damn well I’ll sock you one. What are you doing with Scott?”

“Nothing. I’m out here.”

She blew air out her nose. “One more snappy answer, Theo. Just one more.”

“I’m taking care of him. Liam arranged it because he’s deranged.” Theo talked quickly. “Liam told Scott I was … I had some problems.”

“You were homeless.”

“Uh …” Theo pulled at his collar.

“Once I knew you were still in the city, I tracked you down. No, I didn’t care that you were homeless.”

“Okay. Scott didn’t want anyone giving up their lives to help him, and I didn’t have anything to give up, so Liam—”

She held up a hand. “Cool.”

“Cool?”

“Are you going to doubt everything that I say? Scott needs someone and it might as well be you. I don’t think he’d accept anyone else.”

Theo studied her. He had been able to manipulate her in the past, but he had never managed to maintain it for long. “I didn’t think you’d be okay with it.”

“Why?”

“Well, I kinda thought you two were … you know.”

“We were. Then we stopped.”

“I’m sorry.” Theo said automatically.

“No, you’re not, but it’s okay. I didn’t really understand why until I spent some time with Derek.” She sighed. “I told him what happened and he knew right away what Scott was doing.”

“What — if you don’t mind me asking — happened?”

“He pushed me away after his parents died. We were in the waiting room at the hospital and his mother was in surgery. I was holding his hand as Liam’s dad operated on her, and Scott was listening. She died on the table, and he was listening when she did.”

“Oh, fuck.”

“The first thing he did after that was take his hand out of mine and walk away. After that, he avoided me, until he couldn’t, and even then he refused to touch me.” She was as blunt as she ever was. 

Theo turned away at the emotions in her voice. He wasn’t going to offer her sympathy; he was very sure she wouldn’t accept it. And maybe she would punch him.

“He blames himself.” She continued.

“Well, that’s obvious.”

“Derek told me that Scott probably has decided that he’s responsible for everyone who got involved with Beacon Hills. His mother and his father. The Argents died, especially Allison. Jackson and Isaac had to leave their home. Kira’s trapped in the desert. Stiles will never be okay after the nogitsune. Liam and Mason have nightmares. He didn’t want to add me to the list.” 

“Most of those people walked in; they weren’t dragged in.”

“He thinks they got involved, got hurt, got killed, because he got Bit and didn’t die.” She shrugged. “It’s stupid. Derek said he’s trying to protect us from himself. It’s really stupid.”

Theo frowned, but the next words came out before he could stop them. “I guess I don’t count.”

“No. Don’t be a baby about it. Of course you and my dad don’t count. You hurt yourselves enough without his help.” 

“Are we done here?” 

“Sure. I got what I wanted. Now I need to see if they can make me a drink strong enough that I can feel it.”

When they returned to the disco inside, Cora had claimed a table for her and Peter and Malia headed right toward them. Scott stood nearby, not far from where Braeden and Derek were dancing for deal. Derek was far better at it than he had first pretended. 

For a second, Theo thought about going somewhere else. He couldn’t imagine why he was surprised or hurt. Malia hadn’t said anything that should shock him. Foolishly, instead of leaving, he went over to where Scott stood. 

Scott must have sensed his approach. “She didn’t punch you, did she?”

Not physically, Theo thought. “No. She was trying to look out for you.”

“She doesn’t have to. I’m not worried about you.” Scott took in a breath. “Uh, no, I mean, about either of you.”

“I know.”

Theo stood there helplessly.

“Are you okay? You seem down.”

“This is fun and all, but I don’t know what I’m doing here. It doesn’t seem like I …”

Scott took his arm. “What?”

“I don’t think I belong here.”

“You do.” Scott stood up straight. “You belong right here. I’m sorry if I made you feel that way.” He bit his lip. “Do you want to dance?”

“What?”

Scott said it again, louder. “Do you want to dance? It’s a dance club with dance music. Do you want to dance?”

Theo glanced around at the Hales present. A refusal died on his lips. So what if the others didn’t like it or didn’t want it? Scott hadn’t asked them. He has asked him. 

“I’d love to.”


	7. Chapter 7

Squealing tires and the smell of burnt rubber told Theo he had hit the turn too fast. He barely managed to pull the Cobra back on the road with his supernatural reflexes, which was an excellent outcome compared to Peter’s fifty-five-thousand-dollar car being t-boned by a telephone pole.

Peter, for better or worse, was in no position to worry about either outcome. He had been shoved into the back seat, bleeding from three different gunshot wounds to his torso. Scott had contorted himself up over the top of the passenger seat and was trying to give the omega some basic first aid.

“How is he?”

“Just keep driving.” Scott’s eyes blazed red as he glanced at Theo. The alpha was angry but that’s not why his eyes blazed. He didn’t have time to feel his way around Peter’s body; he needed to see in order to stabilize wounds. His werewolf sire was unconscious but groaned momentarily when Scott dug his claws into a particular vicious wound that looked to be near the heart. “The bullet’s lodged in his rib. I can feel it. If I can just get my fingers on it …”

The three of them had been on their way to follow up a sighting of Monroe by a pack in the Tonto National Forest of Arizona. They had stopped at a diner that was either in Colorado or New Mexico — Theo had been too hungry to care — but when they had come out, they had been ambushed. Scott had been trying not to laugh as Peter and Theo had been insulting each other when they had been hit by automatic weapons. Peter, who had been in front, had gone down hard. They had barely managed to get away.

Theo glanced out the driver’s side mirror, as Scott’s ass blocked the rear view mirror. The dark-blue SUV and the silver pick-up truck from the ambush were still managing to follow a sports car, though they were losing ground. Theo should have been able to lose them easily with the horsepower the engine could put, but one of their bullets had struck something under the hood. He could see a thin stream of smoke coming out even at this speed. The check engine light was on. If he pushed it too hard, the car might stop moving altogether. 

Behind him, he heard Peter gasp out loud in agony, but then fall silent. The Hale’s heart beat slowed as he lapsed back into unconsciousness. 

“Got it.”

Theo could feel the burn in his own bullet wound. Its path had passed through the meat of his upper right arm, and though it was healing, the wolf’s bane in it burned like fire. The pain was beginning to subside, and that meant his body was handling it. Wolf’s bane was still a poison to him like it was too humans, but it wasn’t an allergen like it was for werewolves.

“How are you doing, Scott?”

“I’m fine.”

Theo gritted his teeth as he heard a rumble in the engine. “I didn’t ask for bullshit, I asked for a status update. People are chasing us and they want us dead so I need the truth.”

“I’m _fine._ ” Scott wiggled his way back up to the front seat. “I was only hit once in the leg, and the bullet went all the way through. I’m not in danger of dying any time soon.” The alpha kept looking at the Hale in the back seat. “We have to do something for Peter. There’s a medical kit in the trunk. It has everything I need to burn the wounds clean, but it smells like they got him with Nordic Blue Monkshood.”

The Doctors had made Theo memorize all the different species. To save Peter, they would need unfired bullets coated with the same poison. Peter was most likely a dead man. 

“Oh, _well._ ” It would be no great loss.

“Theo!”

“What do you expect from me? The only bullets close enough to save him are in the trucks I’m presently leaving behind.”

“Slow down then.”

Theo took his eyes off the road to glare at Scott. “Seriously?”

“Yes. Slow down and let them catch up to us. I’ll get the bullets.”

_“No.”_

Scott whipped his head around. “Theo—”

“He’s not worth it! He’s a conman and a murderer and he …” Theo trails off as he see a hint of fang appear at the corner of Scott’s lip raises.

“Look at my eyes.”

They were just as bright as they had been when he was working on Peter. “I see them.”

“What color are they?”

“Red.”

“That means I get to determine who’s worth it. So slow down, and keep her steady.”

Gritting his teeth, Theo did as he was told. He let the speedometer needle drift down, very slowly. 

Scott made a noise halfway between questioning and irritated in the back of his throat.

“Whatever you’re planning won’t work if they think we’re letting them reach us on purpose.” Theo explained as he angrily downshifted. “Let me do what I’m good at.”

Nodding, Scott twisted his body over the seat to check on Peter once again. The older man’s heart was still beating, but Scott had probably been right at his diagnosis. If they didn’t do something quickly, Peter wouldn’t last long enough to get to safety.

Theo thought about just hitting the gas. Scott had given him an order, but he didn’t give a damn about Hale. He didn’t want him or Scott to die for this asshole. He didn’t think Scott would hurt him or do more than …

 _Leave him._

“Son of a bitch.” Theo growled as he noticed both the pursuit vehicles in the side mirror. “Here they come.”

Scott pulled himself back to front seat. Weirdly, he turned sideways so his back was to Theo and his feet rested on the passenger-side door. It had to be an uncomfortable way to sit.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Just keep the car steady.”

Unluckily, there were no other cars in sight on this county highway in this part of New Mexico, so their pursuers rushed forward, aiming to box them in. The pickup surged up on the passenger side and the SUV came up on the driver side. Two men were kneeling in the back of the silver truck, trying to keep their balance while aiming their AK-47s — or whatever they were — at the car. The front and rear passenger-side windows on the SUV were rolled down. They were aiming to catch them in a cross file.

“You’ll know when to pick me up,” Scott shouted.

“What? No!”

Scott didn’t answer. Instead, he dug his clawed hands in the seat and uncoiled his body like a spring. With all the strength he possessed he kicked the passenger side door off like a popping a cap off a bottle. It hit the pickup, which swerved off the road wildly. The driver overcompensated, causing the truck to slam into the side of the Cobra. At that exact moment, Scott rolled into a crouch and sprang through the air, landing in the flatbed of the silver truck and knocking both of the startled gunmen off their feet. 

Reacting by instinct, Theo hit the brakes so both pursuit vehicles overshot him. One of the shooters in the SUV began to fire, hitting nothing but road.

Swerving to the right, he fell behind the silver pickup. The driver was trying to slow down in reaction having an angry alpha werewolf in the truck bed, but Theo pushed the front end of his car to within inches of his bumper. The people in the cab wouldn’t be able to help the two in the back.

If Chris Argent were alive, he would have wrinkled his nose at the lack of training the hunters in the back of the truck with Scott exhibited. Instead of dropping their rifles and going for knives or some other form of melee weapons, they tried to bring their firearms to bear on a transformed werewolf within arm’s reach. Scott grabbed both of their guns with one hand for each. Theo had a clear look at the terror on the amateur’s faces as they realized their mistake. 

Scott planted his feet and pushed, sending one hunter off the truck entirely. The man tumbled as he hit the sand ground to the side of the road and tumbled like a rag doll tossed from a slingshot. Theo realized how desperate Scott was to do this; a fall from a speeding truck could be fatal. With a hand now free, Scott clocked the other hunter across the face, dashing him up against the back of the cab while, more importantly, causing him to lose his grip on the rifle.

Scott only needed the magazine, but he took the rifle anyway. With three steps he had launched himself into the air and landed on the hood of the Cobra, hard enough to splinter the wind shield. Theo slowed down but didn’t slam on the brakes; he wouldn’t run the risk of knocking Scott off. The truck veered off to the side of the road in order to stop, probably to check on their injured friend. Using his claws, Scott managed to crawl in through the gaping door and back into the passenger seat.

“Hit it.”

Theo didn’t need to be told twice. He hit the gas and sped past the truck, leaving them and its occupants behind.

“You get to tell Peter you ruined his car,” Theo tried to joke, anything to make his hands stop shaking. 

“If he lives through this, he can suck it up,” Scott answered. Scott swallowed, breathing heavily himself. Their eyes met and they smiled at each other. 

Ruining the moment, the SUV slammed into their rear driver’s side at a ridiculous rate of speed, trying to force them off the road. Theo strained to turn the wheel and the metal in the steering column groaned, but it was no use. The car was out of control; he couldn’t keep it on the highway. He certainly couldn’t keep them from hitting the boulder in their path.

Theo, Scott, the car, became suddenly weightless. Everything slowed to an almost peaceful tumble between two breaths as the Cobra became airborne. Theo couldn’t stop what was coming, he didn’t want to see the crash, so he closed his eyes. 

When the car touched back down it rolled, side over side, until Theo couldn’t feel it anymore.

**~*~**

Theo didn’t expect to wake up. When he did, someone crouched over him, the sun behind her head. Stone and sand pressed into his back, but he blinked and raised his hand to cover his eyes. The person inspecting him was a Navajo woman. She squatted, dressed archaically in a long leather skirt and a woven blouse, both trimmed with fur and covered with a fur cloak. Randomly, he realized that the fur smelled like rabbit. She had red makeup across her eyes, almost as if she was wearing a mask. She regarded him with no emotion but some interest, though in her hand was a spear the tip of which was made out of the jaw of some predatory animal.

“Who are you?” He croaked out. Turning his head, he found that they were in a ravine of sort, perhaps an arroyo. There was no sign of either the highway or the car. Or Peter. Or Scott. 

“Dezba.” Her voice echoed unnaturally. He was suddenly aware of the power radiating off of her.

Something settled in the pit of his stomach. “What are you?”

“You know what I am, Theo Raeken.”

It took everything that Theo had not to throw up. His heart beat so hard it felt like it was going to erupt out of his chest, which was precisely the situation he was trying to avoid. Any thought of fight vanished, and his hands scrabbled in the creek bed for purchase.

“Have you fully healed?” 

He took three deep breaths, trying to center himself, before he realized that the burning from the wolf’s bane round had disappeared. “Yeah.” It was the only word he could manage to say. 

“Then stand.”

Theo scrambled to his feet. His clothing was torn and soaked with blood throughout it, but his body was whole. He must have been further injured in the crash. How long had he been out?

“What do you want with me?”

“You do not say thank you?” Dezba asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Thank you. I’m sorry.” He stuttered. It took all of his effort not to run panicking. “I … I don’t know …”

“Take a moment to gather you wits, and be at ease. We did not intervene simply to hurt you again.”

Theo took the offered time to settle and examine his surroundings. It was very probable that he was in the real world and not the underworld of the Skin-Walkers. The weather was right, cool and dry, even with the sun. It didn’t get that hot in January, even in Arizona. Even though his instincts told him that he wasn’t in any immediate danger, he couldn’t relax. The only thing that had ever scared him more than the Doctors had been his time in the Skin-Walkers’ care. He needed to understand what was going on.

“Why would you intervene?”

“You were on our people’s land when the hunters attacked you.” Dezba answered, as if that explained anything. “Monroe concerns us.”

“You worry about something like hunters?”

“We worry about balance. The rabbit eats the grass that grow in the field; the wolf eats the rabbits it stalks through the night; man kills the wolves that come too near his home. So the world continues on. But if the rabbits eat all the grass or the wolf eats all the rabbits or the man kills all the wolves, the world will stop. Monroe would kill anything and everything she fears, if she can. There are many supernatural creatures among our people.”

Licking his lips, Theo turned around trying to see anyone else. “Then why don’t you stop her yourself?”

“Why don’t wolves eat grass? If she came to our lands and we attacked her, we would have options, but our people would be hurt in any war we started. Also she is out there among the others, beyond our reach. As we did with Kira, we must use those who can pursue her there. We have chosen your pack.”

“I don’t have a pack.”

Dezba tilted her head to the side, as if he had lied to her. “Do you truly believe that?” 

He couldn’t meet her eyes and dropped them to the ground. “I don’t deserve a pack.”

The Skin-Walker grunted. 

“Isn’t that why you punished me?” He cried out, suddenly angry. “Because I deserved it?”

“No.” The skin-walker turned and walked away. 

“Wait.” Theo’s tongue felt like it was too big for his mouth. “Wait, please!” 

Dezba stopped.

“You kept me underground for three months and had my sister tear her heart out of my chest so many times I lost count. What the fuck was that if not punishment?”

The woman reversed her spear and pushed the blunt end into his chest. “A goad.”

Theo’s eyes narrowed. He pushed the spear away.

“Suffering without purpose is simply sadism. It was meant to prepare you.”

“Prepare me to do what?”

“To change, of course.” Dezba tapped him on the shoulder with the spear butt, ignoring his attempts to one again bat it away. “You had to be made to question your past, your future, your dreams, and your image of yourself. You had to be destroyed in order to be able to grow.” 

Theo crossed his arms in irritation.

“And behold: here you are.”

“How could you have possibly known that Liam would bring me out of the ground?”

She laughed, showing a lot of teeth. “Did you think the wolf could rescue you if we did not permit it? If we had not thought you were ready, it would not have worked.”

“And what if he hadn’t done that?” Theo couldn’t feel a little resentful of this medieval form of therapy.

“We would have remained patient until another situation arose.”

“How long would you have tortured me?”

The Skin-Walker clucked her tongue. “How long did we torture you?”

His jaw dropped when he realized he didn’t know the answer. He caught her eye and found himself scared once more.

“Where we had you, time had no meaning. You could have been there five minutes or five hundred years, and it would have felt the same. It was the first and necessary step, but it was not the last. To be an effective tool, pain must be followed by opportunity.”

“Why?” 

Dezba narrowed her eyes. “I told you.” She started walking again down the arroyo.

“I mean … you don’t do that for every villain who gets beat! You didn’t do it for Peter or Gerard or Douglas or the Doctors. Why me?”

“It is to the benefit of our people to maintain the flow of the world. Those men had made their choices. You had not.”

“I had …” Theo stopped. He wanted to argue with the Skin-Walker, but part of him kept screaming that it was probably not a good idea to argue with her about the validity of them giving him a second chance.

“The choices of a child are not choices. You were manipulated.”

“So, it’s not okay for them to use me, but it’s okay for you to put me through Hell.”

“Why do you act as if it did not work the way we intended? When you returned, you aided others when you could have served only yourself. You risked your life when there was nothing in it for you but belonging and friendship.” Dezba chided. “Sometimes, for a wound to heal, the dead flesh must be cut away.”

He followed her as they walked down the canyon. He didn’t ask where they were going, but he caught a scent of blood and a scent he had begun to know so well. Scott’s. It took everything he had not to immediately break into a run.

The Skin-Walker didn’t seem in a hurry to reach their destination. In fact, she seemed to deliberately slow her pace. When he tried to start walking in front of her, she blocked him with the haft of the spear. She gave no explanation.

“What gives you the right to play with us like this?”

With a smooth motion, Dezba whipped the spear around and took Theo’s legs out from under him, putting him on his back once again. This time, however, the tip of her spear rested in the hollow of his throat.

“The power we possess gives us the right. The wisdom we have earned gives us the right. The responsibility we have shouldered to protect our people gives us the right.” The Skin-Walker’s voice grew softer. “The True Alpha needed your help against the Wild Hunt. He needed your help against the Anuk-Ite. He needs your help against Monroe. If she is unchecked she will harm those of our blood.” 

“So I’ve been used again.”

“Ha.” She snorted. “When you ride on a boat downstream, you use it, but it would have reached the mouth of the river anyway. Every decision you have made since you came out of the ground has been yours. Every feeling you have felt since you left our care has also been yours. Do not lie to me or to yourself.”

Theo felt his cheek coloring. He couldn’t deny that what she had said was true. “You … knew that I would do this?”

“We know many things.”

“Can I go see Scott?”

“You must be patient. He is busy.”

“Doing what?” 

“Saying farewell.”

The breath left his lungs. He had just got Scott to start smiling a little again. “Why does he have to do that? Will she be here for that long?”

“His heart has changed. Her heart has changed. What was between them is not gone; it has taken a new form. It is the way of things. After all, we are all shapechangers. I can take you to Peter instead.”

“Pass.”

Dezba laughed out loud.

Minutes passed. He would probably never be comfortable in the presence of a Skin-Walker, but his initial gut-churning fear had subsided to a background buzz. He relaxed as much as he could. The woman’s words had him thinking, though.

“Dezba, could you heal Scott’s eyes?”

“Yes.”

“Will you? I doubt he would even think to ask.”

“No.”

“Why not? You want to help us against Monroe. Having his eyes back would definitely help us.”

“Would it really? Scott McCall has not won the challenges he has faced by physical prowess, but by other means — by sensing the best in others and working to bring it out in them. By working towards peace and cooperation between those who would never find it otherwise. His eyes are not a necessary, or even an important, facet of his strength.” Dezba looked at something in the distance. 

“It’s not fair.”

“No? There are many of our people who are sick, injured, blind, or oppressed. How many of our people live without things that you take for granted: running water, electricity, hospitals. Why would we use our power to help someone who is not of our people unless we had a good reason to do so?” 

“He sacrificed his eyes to stop the Anuk-Ite, who would have hurt your people, eventually.”

“And for that sacrifice, we honor him. We will not take it away.”

Theo gritted his teeth. “You’re not going to give me some bullshit analogy about the balance?”

Dezba turned her head slowly to look at him, nodded, and then turned to look away.

Scott came around the corner at that point, white cane moving in front of him. He looked … composed. More composed than Theo had thought he would have been. 

The chimera left the Skin-Walker’s side and went to him. “Are you okay?”

“I’m as well as can be expected. Let’s get Peter and go. We have a long walk.”

“Walk?”

“They didn’t care much about the car.” Scott went to open his mouth and then closed it. “It’s only a few miles to a rest area.”

There was nothing else to do but find Peter and resume their journey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a little meta commentary on the use of the Skin-Walkers in Teen Wolf and the plight of Native Americans.


	8. Chapter 8

Nestled in between the wooded arms of some mountain, the cabin was as remote as someone could get in this part of the world. The West, once vast and unknowable, was growing steadily more peopled. Theo had been told the name of the mountain they were on, but he couldn’t recall it. He was simply glad to be here and away from everyone else.

“You two will be okay?” Peter queried as he pulled on his jacket. 

Scott’s eyes were closed as he was lying on the daybed closest to the massive circular fireplace. He may or may not have been asleep, but if he wasn’t, he chose not to answer. Theo paused while chopping up the green peppers. “Since when do you ask something like that without adding an insult to it?”

“Fine. Will you two _children_ be okay?”

“Much better. How long do you think you’ll be gone?” 

“A minimum of three days. All work and no play makes Peter a dull boy. You have enough food and enough fuel for three times that long, so all you need to worry about is getting sufficient rest. You’ll need to be sharp for what comes next.”

Scott suddenly turned his head to face the door. “If we need rest, so do you.”

“As I said, _children._ I am quite sure that as long as you have Cheetos and Mortal Kombat, you’ll be happy. I, on the other hand, need adult company of a particular nature.” Peter smirked at the thought. “It may not seem like it, but I’m a man in the prime of my life.” 

Scott closed his eyes again. “Aren’t you like over forty? Isn’t that practically dead?”

“Cruel, Alpha McCall, cruel.” He opened the door to reveal the beautiful terrain of Arapaho National Forest. “There’s hope for you yet. If you need me, you know the number.”

Theo went back to chopping up vegetables, switching from green peppers to onions. Peter’s fourth new car of the last year threaded its way down the twisting access road, leaving them technically stranded in the woods. 

“What’s for dinner?”

“Pizza.”

“You’re making pizza from scratch?”

“Not really.” Theo admitted, hesitating only for a second. Claiming to have made these things from scratch would make him look like a great chef, but eventually he’d have to put his money where his mouth was. “The sauce and the crust are pre-made.” 

“Wow. Thanks.”

“It’s nothing to thank me for. I’ll be eating it as well.”

“We could have ordered delivery instead of you going through so much trouble.”

Theo remembered only then that Scott hadn’t seen the beautiful countryside as they were driving through it nor understand how remote they were. “We’d have to have it airlifted in. We’re literally on the side of a mountain in the middle of nowhere.”

“I didn’t realize that we are that far out, so I’ll say thank you again. I really felt like having something, you know, not so formal. Peter insists on those sit-down restaurants all the time. Don’t get me wrong, they’re nice but …”

“They’re a lot of work.”

“Yeah.”

Theo had decided to make two pizzas. The first would have chicken, onions, black olives, and Alfredo sauce. The other one would have pepperoni, sausage, green peppers, and green olives. It would end up being a lot of food, but they could manage with their metabolisms. The pies would probably last for tonight’s dinner and tomorrow’s lunch. Finishing up, Theo put the pizzas in the oven. 

“It should be about an hour before they’re ready.”

Scott pushed himself up. “I’ll be even hungrier by then.” 

Theo walked over to an overstuffed chair a few feet from the daybed. He liked how the cabin was set up, an open-plan a-frame, with windows positioned to catch the sunset in all its glorious and fiery color. A huge central fireplace warmed the entire building, reducing the need to use as much kerosene. It did lack privacy, as only the bathroom was walled off from the rest of the place. It seemed designed to be intimate; Theo wondered if it had been designed for romantic getaways.

“Do you really think we needed a vacation?”

“It’s March. We’ve visited over a dozen packs across the Rocky Mountains, a Mexican hunter family, and a coven of witches in Montana in the last four months alone. How many fights have you had in order to prove to them that you’re not crippled?”

Scott grimaced. “If you count me throttling Prentiss Abell as a fight, then it’s four. How many times have you had to run from a negotiation because they wanted revenge against the Doctors?”

“Twice.” Theo blew a raspberry. “The second one was completely bogus. I wasn’t even _born_ in the 1920s!” 

Both of them laughed, but it felt a little forced to him. Theo wouldn’t admit it out loud, but he was tired.

“I guess we did need a vacation, no matter how short.” Scott admitted. “Ha. It’s the full moon tomorrow.”

“I guess it is.”

“The Worm Moon. No wonder Peter wanted to get away from me.”

Theo raised an eyebrow. “Is there something I’m missing?”

“I thought you knew all about our history and everything!” Scott teased. “This will be the third anniversary of his resurrection.” 

Standing up, Theo walked to the picture window to look out over the now dark forest. The road to the cabin twisted and turned through the pine trees, but Peter had left so long ago he must be on the interstate by now. The Doctors had had more than a passing interest in Peter’s return from the dead, but they had never been successful in learning much about it. Theo hadn’t been aware of why they were so interested in it, because, of course, they had hidden the ultimate goal of their experiments from him. He did remember their frustration when it became evident that the lore necessary to understand how Peter accomplished the deed was beyond them. Ultimately, the missing piece had been right in front for them; they hadn’t realized the sheer magnitude of Lydia Martin’s gift at that time. It was probably a good thing for her that they hadn’t.

“So we have at least three days to kill.”

Scott leaned back. “Yeah. I’m going to spend some time in the woods.”

“Doing what?”

“Communing with my inner wolf,” Scott said with a straight face.

“Geez.”

“Thinking, Theo. I know you didn’t miss it, but this trip has been good for me, because I could you know, stop thinking about stuff that couldn’t be changed and focus on the problems directly in front of me. But that other stuff? It’s still there, and it’s not going to go away unless I make the effort.”

“Can I help?”

Scott sat up. His face scrunched up and then expanded. “You’re being serious.”

“Well, yeah.”

“You want to talk about my feelings with me?”

Theo chuffed and got up, walking away in response. It hurt a little bit that Scott had dismissed him like that, even though he knew he had absolutely no right to stick his nose into Scott’s inner thoughts.

“Theo. Come back.”

He grunted a negative.

“I’m sorry. I … I don’t know why I said that. You’ve been nothing but helpful since you started living with me. You’ve come on this trip, you’ve done as I said, you’ve been there when I needed you. Come back.”

“I wasn’t trying to hold you hostage.”

Scott nodded. “I know. So let’s talk.” 

Theo swallowed. “What’d you say to Kira?”

“Good-bye.”

“Why?”

Scott tensed when Theo asked that. Scott had never spent a lot of time talking about the things that hurt him, so much so that the habit was clearly ingrained on him. Theo had to push him to talk about it.

“Why do that? You knew she was going to have to spend some time in the desert. Did she tell you that she was going to be there for decades or something?”

“No. She’s doing well. She thinks she could be out in a year, year-and-a-half.”

“Then I don’t get it. She was crazy about you, and I’m pretty sure you were crazy about her.”

“ _She_ is.” Scott said sadly.

“Oh.” Kitsune were dual entities, made up of a human and a spirit yet inexorably linked. Young ones handled this so clumsily that they were often unable to command their full abilities because of ongoing conflicts. The Doctors, observing that Kira had still been in that delicate stage, had provided enough of a push for the fox spirit to try and take a larger role in making the decisions before the human was ready for it. Her inner balance had been disrupted, though it seemed the Skin-Walkers had been able to help her after all.

“You know,” Scott said sadly, “in a way, I’m sorry that I wasn’t a worse boyfriend.”

“Okay, that’s a weird thing to say.”

“She believed in me enough to tell me the truth; she’s getting to know the fox and it doesn’t like werewolves. It doesn’t really like anyone except maybe other kitsune and her dad.”

“Because she’s learning to merge, that means she doesn’t like …”

“Yeah. She has to learn to balance her two halves, so she’s learning to listen more to that part of herself. Her mother did try to warn us. Foxes and wolves tend not to get along.”

Theo watched emotions roil under the muscles of Scott’s face.

“She would have tried to come back, if I’d asked her to. So I didn’t ask her.”

“So you drove her away, like you did Malia.”

“I … what possible reason would you have to say that?”

“I’m trying to help, and the truth is the truth. Back in Dallas, Malia told me what you did after your mother died.”

Scott gritted his teeth. “Let’s not talk about my mother.”

“You said you wanted to start working on some things, and your mother is definitely a thing. If I’m gonna help you deal with that, we actually have to do some work on it.”

With a sharp turn of his head, Scott turned his head away by habit. He was probably trying to find a way to get out of the conversation, only there wasn’t any. “Pizza ready yet?”

“No. So you pushed Kira away.”

“No!” Scott protested. “Yes. It was more complicated than that.”

Theo slapped Scott on the shoulder and walked over to the oven. “Well, explain it to me.”

“Kira loved me, and I loved her. But I also lied to her. I was afraid of her fox spirit, and her fox spirit knows that, because they’re not really two people. While we were fighting for our lives against the Beast, after I helped free her from the Skin-Walkers the first time, it was easy for her to ignore what had happened. Now, she’s spent fourteen months focusing inward, and those facts haven’t gone away.”

“It resents you.”

“ _She_ resents me. She still loves me, but she resents that I was afraid of something I had to have known was a part of her.” Scott sighed. “And it’s not just her.”

“Do you resent her?”

“No. I resent _me._ What would have happened if after the nogitsune was dealt with, I hadn’t pursued her? Her parents wanted to move back to New York City, where her father had a career and her mother had her own friends. Instead, because I liked her, she stuck around Beacon Hills.”

“Oh.” 

“Don’t take that tone, it’s true.”

“It is true. So you’re blaming yourself because she got hurt.”

Scott didn’t answer. 

“I bet you still blame yourself because Allison got hurt.”

“It’s not blame. It’s responsibility. I’m the one who led them all to Oak Creek. I didn’t wait for her father. I didn’t wait for Derek or the Sheriff or any adult. I said to them, ‘let’s go rescue Lydia!’” Scott held up his hand and Theo saw his claws were beginning to push through tips of his fingers. “I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have tried to save her, but I can’t pretend that the rescue party wasn’t comprised of five teenagers. You shouldn’t be a leader, you can’t be a good leader, if you can’t bear the results of your own decisions. Stiles would never have been possessed if I hadn’t drawn the Alpha Pack to Beacon Hills and Jennifer came running after them, and I decided that it was my duty to fight them. Jackson would never have sought the Bite or even known about it if I had just given up lacrosse.”

“Oh, fuck me.” Theo said. “I need a drink.”

“What?”

“You’re really quite the martyr, aren’t you?”

Scott growled. “Forgive me if I’ve lost faith … my decisions have consequences. I can’t pretend that if I didn’t make the choices I did, the people I love wouldn’t be hurt or dead.”

“You didn’t twist anyone’s arm, either. Stiles, your mom, and Kira followed you because they love you. Allison and Chris would have been involved in it anyway. Liam admires you and wants to be like you. If they get hurt following your lead, it’s not like you promised them they wouldn’t.”

“No, but—”

“Malia also told me that you’re okay going on this trip because you don’t care if Peter or I get hurt.”

“That’s not true.”

“I know it’s not true. I watched you risk your life to save his worthless ass. You leaped into a speeding truck with two hunters carrying assault rifles. What type of bullshit was that?”

Scott didn’t answer. 

He went into the cabinets and pull out some plates and some glasses for something to do.

“You’re not an innocent, Theo.”

“Uh, duh.”

“This isn’t self-flagellation.”

“SAT word?”

“Yes. This isn’t self-flagellation. Going on this trip is dangerous, and I want to limit the danger in which I put innocent people.”

“So you pushed a blue-eyed coyote away because she’s innocent.”

“She is. That blue eyes stuff is bullshit. She was out of control when her mother’s car wrecked.”

Theo nodded. “I think you’re being hard on yourself.”

“Of course you do. Everyone does. But no one’s asking me what I feel.”

The chimera paused. “Okay, what do you feel?”

“I feel happy. This what I wanted. Malia gets to go to France or Argentina or wherever. Liam, Corey, and Mason get to finish high school. Stiles gets to be an FBI agent. Kira gets to learn about herself without worrying about me. Derek gets to have kids and maybe not be miserable for the first time in a decade. I know I’m being selfish by pushing people away who only want to help, but fuck it, I get to be fucking selfish once in a while.”

The bell dings on the oven. “Dinner’s ready.”

They sat down to eat. The pizza turned out very good, even if Theo had to say so himself. He enjoyed it. He made himself enjoy it. But he couldn’t keep from thinking about what Scott had said. 

“I keep hurting you,” Scott said after his third piece.

“What? No.”

“I just said that I don’t mind putting you in danger because you’re not an innocent.”

“I’m not an innocent. I’m the one who brought up that the truth is the truth. I regret some of my choices, but I’m trying to be a better person.”

“You have been a better person.”

“That doesn’t change what I chose to do in the past. Eat the rest of your pizza before I do.”

**~*~**

It was some time after midnight. At least, Theo assumed it was after midnight because the cabin very deliberately had no visible clocks. It was part of its charm, he guessed, a way to escape the pressures of everyday life where everything a person did was measured out in digitally-counted minutes and evaluated accordingly.

He should be relaxed, here in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. They were far away from any other established werewolf packs, any supernatural politics at all, and any hunters. Lone omegas or other supernatural creatures would probably avoid upscale cabins like this one. And, for some reason, Theo felt far away from the past, from his bad decisions, from nightmares, from sisters and Doctors and Skin-Walkers. The only other person nearby was Scott. 

He should be able to sleep. He couldn’t.

For a good hour, it seemed, he wrestled with his bedclothes. First he was too hot, then he was too cold, then they were itchy. The blankets and sheets were really none of those things; it was a game his mind played to avoid the ugly truth perched on the bedpost like a plucked vulture.

Eventually, he gave up trying. He got up and walked across the room to where Scott was gently snoring in bed. He sat down next to the alpha as gently as he could. Scott stirred in his sleep, grunting softly.

In terms of creepy behavior, this wasn’t the worst thing that Theo had ever done. He had expected Scott to seem peaceful in sleep, but he didn’t. There was a tiny wrinkle at the base of the nose between his eyes. The alpha reacted to the slightest movement; not enough to wake up, of course, but he didn’t rest easily.

This emboldened him. He reached down and shook Scott’s shoulder to wake him up.

Immediately, alpha eyes opened, glowing red reflexively. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Theo swallowed. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“What time is it?”

“Don’t know.”

Scott pushed himself up on one elbow, the glow of his eyes, fading. “Then why’d you wake me up?”

“I did that thing when you think of the best counterargument hours after the discussion is over. I couldn’t sleep until I told you.”

Confusion screwed up Scott’s face. “It couldn’t wait until morning?”

“No.” Theo shook his head. 

“Okay, so what is it?”

“You were trying to explain to me why you had to keep people you care about out of this as much as possible? That you just couldn’t cope with anyone else getting hurt?”

“Yeah. Look, I know it’s selfish--”

“It’s not just selfish, it’s stupid. But that’s not my argument. You went on and on about consequences, but you forgot two.”

Scott didn’t answer. 

“You’re going to be lonely.”

Scott sighed then. “Look—”

“Of all the people that you and I know, you enjoy being with others the most. You like people, even people who are hard to like. You like me, and I murdered you! Your plan to protect others by minimizing their exposure sounds great on paper, but there is no possible way that you’re going to approach anything like happiness, and that’s just bullshit.”

“I think I can handle it.”

“I don’t want you to handle it. If I took a damn survey, no one in your life is going to want you to handle it.” 

“Theo—”

“You’re forgetting that, logically, the other consequence for you keeping people out of your life as much as possible is that you’re going to be out of their lives as much as possible.” 

“It’s better than them being dead or broken.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

Theo ducked his head in and place a kiss on Scott’s lips. Scott couldn’t stop him. It wasn’t exactly fair, but Theo wasn’t in the mood to be fair. Scott startled and brought up his hands to grip Theo’s arms, but he didn’t pull away. Theo pressed the kiss hard until he had to pull back. 

“What was that for?”

“Stiles is right. You’re pretty dumb. What did you think it was for?”

Scott still had him by the shoulders. “Why?”

“Gee, Scott, I don’t know. Did you think I was able to fool you during senior year because I secretly despised you? It was easy to act as if I liked you because I liked you. What’s not to like? Even now, you’re the only person who doesn’t treat me like they’re just waiting for me to stab them in the back.”

“Liam does.”

“You idiot.” Theo kissed him again, though this time Scott had enough presence of mind to pull away. “Liam does, but I haven’t been traveling with Liam for the last four months. I haven’t been sharing hotel rooms and meals and getting shot at by crazed hunters with Liam. I was lying awake, and I couldn’t go to sleep, because you said you didn’t want anyone you cared about to be broken, but since you needed someone to help you, it might as well be someone who already had been.”

“It was mean for me to say something like that, so you kissed me?”

Theo thought the confusion in Scott’s voice was adorable. “You trust me when you have no reason to. You chose me when you have so many other people who would eagerly do for you what I do for you. You like me; you know you do. You want me around. I was staring at the ceiling over there, wondering what more could I possibly want.”

Scott finally let his arms go, sitting silently in the darkness in the middle of nowhere.

“I want you to love me.”

Theo stared at Scott’s outline in the darkness. Scott had to have heard his heart, beating evenly and without even the smallest blip. He had to have caught Theo’s scent and knew what it means. 

“Theo,” Scott whispered. 

One of them, Theo wasn’t sure which one, brought their foreheads together so they were lightly touching. It brought back a feeling, one from before he had ever met the Doctors. They had moved into a new house, and Tara and he had been given a pick of rooms to be their very own. Theo had stood in the empty room, with egg-shell blue walls and light green carpeting. There had been a square of brilliant sunlight from the window which looked over the back yard. The window had no curtains, so the beam made everything shine like all tomorrows together. 

“I haven’t thought of you like that.”

Theo chuckled. “You’re going to start lying? Now?” 

“Okay.” Scott let out a breath of air. “I … okay.”

Scott made the next move, taking Theo’s lips with his. It had been something that Theo had been hoping for, some gesture to prove that it wasn’t one sided. His stomach flopped, and he wished he hadn’t eaten quite so much at dinner. 

“I know I’m not like the girls you’ve loved before.”

“Shhh.” Scott kissed him again. “No one is like anyone.”

Sliding his hand up Theo’s arm, Scott put his hand around his neck and then pulled Theo down on top of him as he leaned back on the bed.


	9. Chapter 9

Rubbing his head with a towel, Theo emerged from the bathroom fighting off the urge to sing. He believed, no matter what anyone said, that he had a very good voice, but he felt that he had to be pushing his luck, simply by being this happy. Outside the windows, morning light pooled between the trees. A hawk eyed him critically from the branch of an enormous fir. 

“What are you looking at?” Theo joked. The bird tilted its head to the side in response.

As a compromise, he started to whistle, and he didn’t feel the slightest bit bad about it. The last twenty-nine hours had been amazing. In fact, he hadn’t felt good like this in a very, very, very long time. He should take the time to enjoy it. 

Maybe he should have gotten dressed rather than wandering around in his boxes, but instead he went to the refrigerator and started rooting through it. He wasn’t planning to go outside. The sun was out, but the branches moved when the wind gusted, so it would be chilly. 

Scott had worn a jacket when he had left. The alpha had woken Theo up with a kiss a little before dawn, telling him that he was going to go for a walk. Theo had made to get up, but Scott had laughed and pushed him back down as he got out of bed.

_“Sleep in. I’ll be back before you finish breakfast.”_

Theo smiled at the memory. 

Digging back behind the soft drinks, he found a carton of eggs and a carton of sour cream. He’d make Mexican omelets. Or at least, he would try. He’d only made them once before. He started to set out all the ingredients, before he went diving in the cabinets under the stove for the right type of frying pan. 

Outside, the hawk gave a startled cry. Theo didn’t think much of it at first, but, after a second, it bothered him. The omelet pan in his hand, he rose, looking out the window. The hawk had left its branch and flown away. 

But Theo wasn’t alone. Looking in through the corner of the window, a man wearing goggles and strange clothing swung an assault rifle at him.

“Fuck!”

Theo turned to run towards the back door, but he was out of time. The window splintered and he felt the bullet enter his chest, throwing him back up against the wall-mounted stove. Whoever had come for them had a sniper as well. Theo dropped to the floor, but it was only half voluntarily. 

He coughed up blood as he tried to get his feet under him; he was having trouble breathing. For some reasons, his eyes fell upon the door of the wall-mounted stove. The bullet hole there told him the show was a through and through. The blood in his lung would clear up quickly.

Yet not quickly enough. The door to the cabin burst open and he identified at least five pairs of booted feet; they were no longer moving stealthily. It struck him as weird that even compensating for the smell of his own blood, he couldn’t smell them. Their heavy camouflaged outfits must have also been scent blockers. 

Two of them came around either side of the kitchen island and pointed rifles down at him. He put up his hands. He was at a disadvantage.

All of them were heavily armed. One of them stalked up to him, obviously the leader, handed the rifle to another hunter and put their hands on their hips, studying him. 

“Can I help you?” He grinned through bloody teeth.

“Oh, Mr. Raeken,” Tamora Monroe pulled off the hood of her outfit. “I definitely think you can help me.”

**~*~**

The kitchen was heavy wood and the metal restraints had been employed to give him little room to get any leverage.

“Could I have at least gotten dressed?”

Monroe looked up from where she was going through one of Scott’s suitcases. Theo had to credit Gerard Argent with one thing: he had trained his new protégé well. Her behavior indicated she didn’t assume that she was going to win this encounter, so she was preparing for the next. Studying Scott’s things was a way to predict his next move.

“Oh, I don’t thinks so. I want you in as vulnerable a position as possible.”

“Kinky.”

The former guidance counselor frowned. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re far too young for me. My interest in you is purely … professional.”

“Does the career center list genocide as a profession now?” Theo taunted, because the only alternative was to admit that he was terrified. 

One of her hunters raised his rifle to bring the butt down on his face, but Monroe stopped him with a gesture. “Go take your positions. Be ready.” She closed the suitcase before coming over and pulling up a seat in front of Theo. Theo’s back was to the front door and the picture window, so Scott would be able to see him but Theo wouldn’t be able to tell he was there until it was too late. Monroe’s chair had her back to the kitchen island, so an enemy coming up from behind wouldn’t have a straight shot.

As Theo had observed before: she was well trained. Though she either didn’t know about Scott’s disability or had figured out he could compensate for it. 

“Genocide is a pretty extreme description of what I’m doing. Do you know the dictionary definition of the word?”

“The deliberate killing of a large group of people.”

“Very good. I’d argue that, as such, it doesn’t apply to what I’m doing.”

Theo smirked. On the other hand, _he_ had been well-trained in this type of game. “Uh-huh.”

“I’ll admit, part of the definition absolutely applies. We are indeed killing deliberately, and it would be foolish to argue that point with you. After all, you’re a bit of an expert in it, aren’t you?

“Fuck you.”

“Again, not interested. I am, however, interested in numbers. You’ve probably met almost every werewolf pack west of the Mississippi by now, haven’t you? How many werewolves would that be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Estimate for me. Please.” She did have a knack for sounding reasonable. 

“I don’t know, maybe three hundred?” 

“Good.” Monroe tapped her finger on her lips. “According to the information I took from the Argent files, there’s less than half that number east of the Mississippi. Werewolves tend to be attracted to rural wilderness.” 

“It allows them to hide from psychos like you.”

“Touché. That’s about four hundred and fifty werewolves, if we’re being generous, in the United States alone. Let’s add another fifty for smaller, easily missed packs and omegas.”

“Very generous.”

Monroe nodded as if he hadn’t been sarcastic. “Thank you. So that’s about five hundred in total. And yet, even if I killed every single werewolf in the entire United States, I wouldn’t, according to your former masters, have reached the body count of La Bête du Gevaudan, the werewolf you helped resurrect? Would I?”

Theo dropped his eyes to the ground. 

She reached out and snagged him by his hair and pulled his eyes up to meet hers. _“Would I?”_

“No.”

“Then maybe we should be a little more careful in our choice of vocabulary, hmmm?” 

Eyes glowing, fangs out, Theo snapped at her. She tilted her head to the side in curiosity. If she had once been afraid of werewolves, she had mastered that fear. 

The walkie-talkie she wore at her hip gave two beeps. She blinked, stood up, and pulled out a heavy piece of cloth. Stepping behind Theo, she forced it into his mouth. He tried to spit it out, tried to bite through it, but it was some form of ballistic cloth and she had the advantage of position.

“Get ready.” 

Theo suddenly tried to surge forward, but the chains were too strong and his range of movement was too limited; Monroe pushed him back down and then rotated the chair to face the front.

She patted him on the shoulder. “You can’t help him, Theo. Save yourself unnecessary pain and stop trying.” 

Before he could think of something else to try, Scott charged through the door in full alpha glory. “Get away from him!” His voice was rough with fangs and his eyes blazed.

“Calm down. That man over there …” Out of the corner of his eyes, Theo saw the hunters to their left and right take aim. “… and that man over there will empty their clips into Mr. Raeken the moment you attack. You’re fast enough to get to one of them, but not both.” 

Theo turned his head from side to side, eyes glowing, thrashing to get free. He had to communicate to Scott to make a run for it. 

Instead, Scott came to rest, his shoulders slumping a fraction. God fucking damn it. Scott was going to try to save him. 

“Why shouldn’t I? You’re going to kill us anyway.”

“No, Mr. McCall, the only person who has to die this morning is you. Whether Mr. Raeken dies depends on the chat we’re about to have.”

Scott’s face grew firm and resolved, and Theo yelled uselessly against the gag.

“What do you want?”

“Why don’t you have a seat over there?” She gestured to the bed where Theo and Scott had spent the last two night. “Pull your legs up on the bed.” 

The alpha did as he was told. Making him sit like that slowed his ability to act down. 

“You’ve been going around the entire United States west of the Mississippi talking to all sorts of packs. You’re going to give me names and locations.”

Scott shook his head. “No. I won’t.” 

Monroe took out a gun and put it to the side of Theo’s head. She shifted around so Scott could have a clear view of Theo’s face. His eyes were still glowing red, so Scott could see. Theo tried to plead with his eyes for him to fucking run.

“Do not doubt that I’ll put a bullet right through his skull. He deserves it, you know.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“I have a list. Do you want to read it? It’s the list of names of the children he helped mutilate. It’s a list of the families he’s torn apart.”

“I don’t want to read it. I don’t need to read it. I know he did terrible things, but he was taken by people when he was very young, people in a position of authority, who twisted him and others like him into serving their own violent ends.” 

Theo would have high-fived Scott if his hands were free. 

Monroe was too good a listener to miss the intended barb. “The difference between me and the Dread Doctors is that they deceived young Theo here into thinking he would become better, yet all he became was a warped product of corrupt science. I’m not deceiving anyone I lead. I’m helping to keep them safe.”

“Your hunters killed people who had never hurt anyone in their entire lives.”

The woman spat. “And how would I know that, Scott? Would you tell me, as a paragon of truth and openness? How did Allison Argent die?”

Scott closed his eyes. It would always be freaky; the red glow could still be seen through them. 

The former counselor continued, relentlessly. “According to what I was told when I joined the faculty of Beacon Hills High School, you, Isaac Lahey, Lydia Martin, and Allison were innocently driving down the road when you were carjacked. She was stabbed by one of the carjackers. When I read the police report, it said pretty much the same thing.” 

Theo felt the metal of the gun barrel jab sharply into his skin right behind his ear. 

“It was a lie.” Monroe said calmly. “So how did Allison Argent die?”

“She was stabbed by an Oni.”

“Yes.” Monroe nodded. “A Japanese demon summoned by Noshiko Yukimura to hunt down another Japanese demon, a nogitsune.”

“I know. I was there.” 

“Yes. And this second demon killed how many people?” 

“I don’t know.”

Monroe’s voice became ice cold. “Two at the hospital due to a trick with a power line and a broken hydrant. Six at the residence of a Japanese man named Hideo Katashi. Two police officers with a bomb at the sheriff’s station. Two more police officers were killed by the oni and sixteen people at the hospital during the second attack. That’s 28 people. Roughly the same amount were badly injured.” 

“And a werewolf named Aiden.” Scott reminded her. “We stopped it, but we didn’t get out of that unscathed.”

“Tragic.” Monroe answered insincerely. “Yet that’s nearly fifty-six people who have suffered, whose families have suffered.”

“And your point?” 

“If I hadn’t been found by Gerard Argent, I wouldn’t have known any of that. All those people, killed and hurt, and all their survivors, no one would ever have known the truth. So, what else don’t we know? Perhaps how many people Theo has personally killed? You’ll understand, Scott, _if I don’t trust your word for it.”_

“So you’re going to kill everyone because I lied?”

“It’s about safety. As long as you and people like you live beyond the law in the shadows, how many innocent people are going to be collateral damage to your wars?”

“I tried …”

“Did you? Are you sure about that? Because I don’t think you really tried at all.” 

Theo said something filthy against the gag, but Monroe couldn’t hear it.

“Let’s talk about Jackson Whittemore, turned into a lizard creature after being bit by a werewolf because he was too mentally unstable to become a real werewolf, however the hell that works. He killed nine people.”

“It wasn’t Jackson, it was Matt, who was controlling him. Jackson’s not responsible for what Matt made him do, and Matt was human.” Scott argued. “You don’t have to be supernatural to be a monster.”

“But you do have to be supernatural to get away with it!” Monroe shot back. “I learned that somehow he was killed, came back, and then became a werewolf before moving to London. What steps were taken to see if he could possibly revert to a reptilian murder machine? Was he evaluated by a psychiatrist? Did he attend a court hearing to see if he was stable enough to leave the country without proper supervision?”

“No.” Scott sounded a little helpless.

“That’s right, no, he wasn’t. A potential threat to the public good was allowed to walk completely free, because if there had been any intervention by the state, all your little secrets would come to light. I guess Londoners are really luckily he didn’t suffer a break down.” 

Theo struggled against the chains. It became obvious now. She was targeting Scott’s weak points. 

“I was sixteen.” Scott said, quietly. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“Neither did Tucker Cornish. Did you see his body? I read that he was paralyzed but conscious as the weight of your best friend’s jeep crushed him like a grape in a wine press. I’ve got pictures if you want to see them.” She was furious, but it was a tactical fury. “All those secrets had to be kept. Kept so Scott McCall could play lacrosse.”

“I did my best. I’m only human.”

“But you’re not. People think that the bloodlust of the werewolves or the hunger of the wendigoag or the unstoppable disaster of the Wild Hunt should make us all afraid, but that shouldn’t be the true source of our fear. It’s the helplessness. It’s the men, the women, the children, walking down the street never knowing if this is the moment when they become another body in some supernatural creature’s private feud. Never knowing when they’ll be drawn into violence and horror by creatures who only claim humanity when they know it will shield them from their misdeeds. They’re helpless to protect themselves, helpless like Kara Simmons was helpless. Helpless like Nurse Anthony Reading was helpless. Helpless because they didn’t know, helpless because _you_ simply didn’t care to let them know. Helpless like your parents were helpless.” 

“ _You_ killed my parents.”

“Your parents would never have been involved, you would never have been involved, if monsters didn’t exist. And that’s why we’re here, today, to end this. So children like you don’t have to watch their families die and _pretend_ they don’t know how it happened. Give me the names, and I’ll let Theo have a ten-minute head start.”

Scott’s head had dropped under the relentless assault of Monroe’s pitch. But then, slowly, he raised it. He swung his feet off the bed and put them flat on the ground. He pulled the white cane out of his jacket pocket and snapped it out with a flick of his wrist. This unsettled Monroe, who didn’t know whose memory it was supposed to invoke.

“Deucalion had a vision of peace, and then he killed a lot of people. I don’t know if he was born a werewolf or he was Bit, but when Gerard took his eyes, he lost sight of what he had once known to be true. Vengeance solves nothing; violence solves nothing. If you killed every single supernatural creature in the world, people would still die, because people like you would still find a way to justify killing them. It’s not what you are that matters, it’s what you choose to do. That’s what Deucalion taught me. You killed him, too.” 

Scott stood up, and the cane tapped once upon the ground. 

“I’m sorry, Theo.” Scott’s voice broke. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. I may have made a lot of mistakes; a lot of people may be dead because of those mistakes. I may have more blood on my hands than the Demon Wolf ever did. But that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I won’t hurt other people for my weaknesses, so you’re going to have to kill me, Monroe, because I am not telling you anything.”

“You’re a fool.” Monroe turned her gun on Scott.

“I’m a True Alpha.” 

Scott coiled himself to lunge. All three hunters in the room readied their guns. Before the cataclysmic struggle could begin, the sound of gunfire from outside was heard, even by the human hunters. It was followed quickly by howls, a chorus of wolves with voices raised in unison.

Distracted, Monroe stepped to the side and went for her walkie-talkie. She and her hunters never took her eyes off of Scott, but they took their eyes off of Theo. They had bound a human very well, but tying up a coywolf was another thing entirely. 

At the sound of the chains falling and the chair shattering, Monroe and the other two hunters switched target as a team, which left the other danger in the room unattended. Scott was on Monroe in an instant, picking her up like she was a pillow and throwing her at one of the gunners. They slammed up against the wall and rolled down to the ground.

The other one started firing at Scott, but tried to switch targets in mid burst when a four-legged Theo charged him. None of the shots struck dead center, which is what a hunter needed to do to stop either a coywolf or an alpha. Theo ripped the gun out of his hand with his teeth and cornered the man. Scott had rushed over to Monroe and her minion and kicked away their guns. When Monroe pulled a knife, Scott grabbed her with one hand and threw her out the picture window.

Wolves howled again. 

“Stay down.” Scott order the hunter as he picked up an assault rifle. “A pistol won’t finish me and while I’m definitely not a good aim with this thing, I don’t need to be, do I? Theo, turn human.” 

Theo did as he were told and then quickly disarmed both of the hunter. They didn’t resist, stunned at the change in events, and covered by an alpha with an AK-47. Theo went over to the window. “Monroe’s gone.”

“I have a suspicion she won’t get far. Tie them up.”

There was plenty of reinforced chains lying about, and Theo had been taught how to secure prisoners. When he was finished, he winked at Scott. “You can put it down now.”

Scott sighed and rested the assault rifle on the counter. “Do you think they could tell that I’m blind?”

Theo laughed. “You’re getting crueler in your old age. Now what?”

“Now, we wait.”

**~*~**

Twenty werewolves, including two alphas, assembled before the cabin’s front door. To the two prisoners that Scott and Theo had captured, they had added three more, including Monroe, looking worse for wear.

“How many did you bring with you?” Scott said severely to Monroe. Theo stood next to him. Since the fight began, Scott hadn’t let him go anywhere else, not even to get dressed. 

“Twelve.” She sounded like she hadn’t expected a different outcome.

“Their blood is on your hands,” Scott proclaimed. “They were armed with heavy weapons and wolf’s bane, and they were here to kill. Don’t even think about blaming the werewolves gathered here for their deaths.”

The former counselor set her jaw. 

Scott turned away. “Not that I’m upset with the rescue, but what are you doing here?”

Prentiss Abell snorted. “I think that should be obvious.”

“My contacts told me that Monroe was making her move, so I gathered the troops,” Peter called out from the back. He swaggered forward until he could smile down at the captives. “When we identified their target, we came right here.”

Scott paused, cocking his head slightly. He paused only for a second, but then he went on as if it were nothing. “Thank you all. Now we can end this.”

Theo didn’t pay attention; he was focused on Peter, completely. The omega smirked at him.

The alpha of one of the larger Wyoming packs took a step forward. “Do you want us to take care of it? If she had killed my family, I would want to kill her myself, but it’s been said that you don’t kill.”

Tapping the cane on the ground, Scott moved from Monroe to the four surviving hunters. “I can kill. I will kill, but only when there is no other choice. It’s easy to walk that path yet it solves nothing. No one had to die today, and no one else has to die today because I’m going to give all of you a choice.”

There were murmurs in the crowd. The smirk on Peter’s mouth froze, and Theo ignored the urge to gloat and kept all his senses on him.

“Here’s something you may not know about us: we’re predators, we don’t have to be killers. That’s a choice. And now, you four — you also have a choice. There’s going to be a truck coming here, and it’s going to take you to Araya Calavera. She is going to teach you how to be real hunters with a real Code. You will _not_ enjoy it. Or …” Scott gestured with his cane to the woods. “You can make a run for it. I suppose if you find your way out of the woods before any of the people you intended to murder find you, you’ll deserve to live.”

While several of the betas cheered, Prentiss Abell was outraged. “The Calaveras! You’d make them stronger?”

“The Calaveras enforce the Code like law. The stronger we make that family, the more they can enforce it on people that followed Monroe. Someone I once knew said, that the best way to get rid of your enemies is to get someone else to do it for you.” Scott lifted the corner of his lip over a fang. “You looked to me for leadership, and that’s what I say we should do. I think you’ll all agree, that we can’t just let them go back to their lives as if they did nothing, but we won’t be forced into being their executioners. They’ll either show us they can change, like any human being can, or they’ll take their chance in the forest with all the other animals.”

“What about Monroe?” The other Alpha, a female from a smaller pack outside Denver spoke up. “You’re going to send her there, too?”

“No, we can’t afford to do that, but we don’t have to. There is plenty of evidence that she was a conspirator in the murder of a federal agent.”

Peter looked outraged. “We didn’t do all of this for her to go to prison. She’ll tell the Feds everything.”

Scott didn’t even look at Peter, but he opened up his hand in Theo’s direction. Theo went over to the alpha, standing close enough for Scott to know he was there even in this crowd. He sent Peter a smirk of his own. 

“Before we call them, we’re going to have to find out what she knows. We’re going to find the location of every cell, of every weapons cache, and of every supply of wolf’s bane. We’re going to get the names of every contact in every police force and every person with influence who had anything to do with the Argent network, and then we’re going to neutralize them. Individual hunters are really no threat to us, but we can destroy that organization with the knowledge she possesses.”

“I’ll tell you nothing,” Monroe vowed.

“You won’t have to.” Scott dropped his claws in his left hand. “We’ll take that information from you, and then we’ll take every single memory you have of us. Every name. Every face. Except for the ones you killed. You’ll remember those people for the rest of your life.”

Chemo signals of terror poured off the woman, but Scott took a deep breath. “You should take pride in the fact that you made me stoop this low.” He turned to the assembled werewolves. “Anyone have a problem with my plan?”

“I do—” Peter rasped.

“Be quiet, omega,” the Wyoming Alpha snarled, “he was talking to the real werewolves.”

Theo did not laugh out loud, but it was a very near thing.

In the end, they were all convinced. No one there believed an all-out war would be good for anything but the scavengers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a bit of light-hearted fun, I do jab at Cody Christian's singing career. He's actually pretty good.


	10. Chapter 10

It would take Scott and three other alphas, including Milly Abell, six weeks to get all the information they needed. To make sure their interrogations were uninterrupted, they relocated Monroe to an abandoned farm in the Texas Panhandle, far enough away from any pack homes that should Monroe’s people find her, no pack would be exposed. 

Theo missed the cabin almost immediately. While it had been remote, it had been designed as a luxury vacation spot. This compound was also remote, but the wiring in the main house was prone to sparking dangerously or going out completely, every single room held decades’ worth of dust, the barn threated to collapse if you sneezed too hard, and the view was nothing but dirt and dead grass as far as the eye could see.

Sifting through memories was grueling work. Scott, Milly Abell, and the other two would spend an hour each on alternate nights threading their way through her mind. Then the pair of them would be interrogated by their betas, including Theo and Peter, while the experience was still fresh in their heads. In the morning, everyone would gather to discuss what had been learned, before a beta would drive twenty miles to the nearest town in order to e-mail the information to the pack in the proper position to take care of it. 

He was forced to admit it was a nightmare for Monroe as well. While they cared for her neck as much as they could, she would bear a scar for the rest of her life, though Theo imagined that it would be the least of her problems. At first, she tried to fight the intrusion, but eventually the nightly sessions took their toll. She wasn’t completely broken, but even if she escaped that day, she wouldn’t be much of a threat for a long time to come.

Scott would always come back to the room he shared with Theo after the debriefing of his session. He would be silent and morose. Sometimes he would cry. 

One night, he sat down on the bed, facing the wall. “Theo. I need you.”

“I’m right here.”

Scott raised his hand so Theo could take it. Theo pressed in as close as possible on the bed and Scott sagged into him. 

“Tell me what we’re doing here doesn’t make me as bad as I feel.”

“You made the right decision and for the right reasons. Letting her go was not an option. You could have just killed her or let them kill her. What do you think would have happened then?”

“I don’t know.”

Theo gave him a little shake. “You’ve been around people like her for years. Guess.”

The alpha sighed and laid down on the bed. “If she was murdered, she could have become a martyr. One of her lieutenants would have probably have stepped up, taken her place, and killed a lot of supernaturals, using the very network we’re taking down.”

Theo followed him so they were close together. “You have to remember, they started this.”

“No one started it.” Scott’s voice was sharp and his body stiffened.

“Huh?” Theo came up on one elbow.

Scott had his eyes closed and spoke without opening them. “Monroe was created by the Beast but she was also created by me. The Beast was created by the Doctors, and I was created by Peter. The Doctors came back because I restarted the Nemeton to stop the Darach, who followed the Alpha Pack here, who came here because of me, and again I was changed by Peter. Peter was hurt by Kate who was trained by Gerard who hated Deucalion because he Bit his brother, Alexander Argent. So on and so forth, back until we come once again to the Beast whose rampage led Marie-Jeanne to found the Argents. Yet, both of us know that there was a reason Henri Argent knew how to defend himself from werewolves, so he, in turn, was motivated by someone.”

“How do you know all this?”

“After Allison died, I borrowed some books from Chris and I talked to Deaton … a lot. I found that _Who started it?_ is a pointless question. It’s an excuse for violence.” Scott’s sightless eyes fixed on some point beyond the ceiling, and he folded his hands behind his head. “ _Who stops it?_ is the better question.”

“You’re stopping it.”

“Am I? I sent men to spend the rest of their lives with the Calaveras. You’ve seen what we’re doing to Monroe.”

“Those men wanted to kill every single person like you just because they are like you. She’s the one who told them it was okay to do that. She was the one who organized them. If you simply had her arrested, she would have used her knowledge and her connections to murder people from inside a prison, or she’d choose to expose the supernatural to the rest of the world. That’s what fanatics do. You have to do this. She’ll survive it, which is more than anyone else wanted for her.”

“Okay.”

“Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.”

“After all, you’re a realist, aren’t you?” 

Theo smirked. “I’m a survivor. You need people like me to remind you that you’re one, too.”

**~*~**

Theo sat in the passenger-side seat of Peter’s most recent sports car, watching as Scott knocked on the door of the Clarke residence in Pasadena. They had left Texas the night before last, the hard work of processing Monroe done. Milly Abell had decided that the safest course of action was to use her connections within the Texas Rangers to have Monroe arrested in their jurisdiction. She would personally keep an eye on the proceedings and see to it that Tamora Monroe was successfully transferred to Federal custody.

The moment they got on the road and away from the former school counselor, Scott brightened considerably. He talked to Peter; he joked around with Theo. Theo felt something relax within him when that happened. Scott would never be comfortable with anything that resembled revenge, no matter how well deserved. 

Scott had asked if they could visit Hayden Romero and Valerie Clarke. He wanted to touch base with Hayden, whom he hadn’t seen since she had moved away from Beacon Hills for Valerie’s sake. The alpha hadn’t called her back when the trouble with Monroe had started, just as he hadn’t called Stiles back. 

Without talking about it, it had been decided that Theo should wait in the car. He didn’t think that the former chimera hated him anymore, but he didn’t want to make the meeting uncomfortable for anybody. Scott had felt the growing gap between them, and he needed to re-establish those bonds, especially after experiencing how the other alphas ran their packs. 

Theo didn’t mind. Peter, on the other hand, was grumpy, and it was getting on his nerves.

“Have any cards?”

“You have a phone don’t you, Peter? Can’t you play Candy Crush?” 

“I don’t know what that is.” Peter sneered, though Theo didn’t have to listen to his heartbeat to tell that was a lie. 

“You can’t spend an hour in a car?”

“I can. I won’t be happy about it.” 

Theo ground his teeth.

Peter reached to turn on the car engine. Theo knocked his hand away and pulled the key out of the ignition. The older werewolf gave him a glare. “Are you serious?”

Theo shook the keys. “It’s a full seven hours to Beacon Hills, and if I’m going to have to spend that time looking at your smug pucker, you can wait for Scott.”

The omega tilted his head to the side. “I have spent the last three years waiting for Scott. I waited for him to realize the threat the Argents represented, and he refused. So it wasn’t until now that we finally dismantled their legacy, and all it cost was dozens of lives. I waited for him to realize that the power we have exists to be used. He whined and blathered for years, but it wasn’t until now that he’s finally willing to do what’s necessary. All it cost him was a dead family and damaged friends. I waited for him to realize that his morality was nothing but a millstone around his neck—”

“If you think Scott’s abandoned his morality, you’re still crazy.” 

“Am I?”

“You just don’t understand it, and like all fuck-ups, if you don’t understand something, you underestimate it. You think he’s a soft idiot, but there would be no dismantling of the Argent legacy if he wasn’t _part_ of the Argent legacy. His ability to work with Chris and Allison gave him insight the other alphas didn’t have, and you wouldn’t be interested in having. This whole scheme may have been yours at first, yet you were right all along. It wouldn’t have worked without Scott, because no one would have trusted you long enough to get anything accomplished. It wasn’t you who brought these people together, and it wasn’t you who got them to abandon revenge for a solution that would end the threat once and for all.”

Peter’s eyes flashed blue. “You got a little brown stuff on your nose there.”

“I’m just repeating what you said when we were all sitting in his kitchen. Unlike you, I mean it.”

“You think you understand the world better than I do?”

“Hell, yes. I’m smarter than you.” 

Peter threw back his head and laughed. “Who has benefited from this adventure without having to sleep with the alpha?”

Chimeras weren’t real werewolves. If he had been, Theo would have gone for Peter’s throat and he wouldn’t have stopped until one of them was dead. 

“This isn’t over yet, Peter.”

“What … do you mean by that?”

The Surgeon would have punished him for a week for that slip up. “Nothing.”

Peter’s hand shot out and grabbed his wrist hard. “Try again.”

Theo dropped his fangs in response. “You think you can take me? I’m not a high school sophomore who’s never been trained to fight. I’m not an omega without a pack.”

The pressure on his wrist increased. 

“You want to start a fight here? Scott’s less than a hundred feet away, and Hayden may not like me, but she’ll do what Scott says.”

Peter snapped his ulna. Tears welled in Theo’s eyes, but he wouldn’t cower. “I’m stronger than I look, experiment. I’m going to make our time together seem without end unless you tell me what you meant by that.”

“If I were you, I’d plan to relocate to somewhere else other than Beacon Hills.”

“Why ever would I do that?”

“Because if you don’t, I’ll kill you. Remember, I spent nine years with a group of crazed scientists pushing the boundaries between life and death, and I’ll make sure this time you stay dead.”

“Why ever would our oh-so-moral alpha allow you to do that, even if you had a chance to succeed?”

“You tried to kill Scott in Colorado. The moment I tell this to the rest of the pack, including Liam, the Sheriff, and Parrish, you’re a dead man walking.” 

Peter let go of his arm after another twist. “You’re paranoid.”

“Derek didn’t think so.”

Peter growled.

“Just so you don’t do something stupid, I’ve already sent everything I had to your nephew. If I should meet with an accident while in your company, I think we can both trust that he’ll do what’s right.” Theo straightened out his wrist. “You were sloppy.”

Peter’s demeanor changed to one of calculation. “Do tell.”

“Did you think no one would notice how convenient it was that Monroe got an anonymous tip to where Scott and I were holed up? Everything was ready, so all that was needed was to get Monroe in the right place at the right time. What better bait for that than the alpha who got away?”

“You’re saying that I left you there, tipped off Monroe, gathered our allies, and rode in like the cavalry.” Peter seemed strangely pleased. “It would have been a tragedy if you two were killed by Monroe as her last act, but everyone would recognize that I had done my best.”

Theo nodded. “Exactly. I kind of resent it.”

“Your very interesting story lacks something, though, Theo.” Peter smirked. “Proof.”

“As I said, you were sloppy. You made a point to tell Scott and me when you were leaving that we could call you if we needed you, but you knew there was no cell reception at the cabin.”

“People are so naturally suspicious. If it had happened the way it did in your imagination, of course I needed an alibi. Stiles, at least, would have wondered why I left Scott in the middle of nowhere with no means to communicate. On the other hand, I may simply have not realized that you didn’t have a signal.”

“And that’s where you screwed up, because you didn’t call.”

“What?”

“You didn’t even try to call. While we were in the Panhandle, I checked out your phone while you were in the shower. I’m creepy like that.” It was Theo’s turn to smirk. “You gathered all the allies thanks to the tip you received from your nameless friends, but you never even tried to call us at the cabin. It’s almost as if you knew that it would be pointless.”

Peter frowned. 

“I didn’t just check. I made sure to record your call logs and I sent them to Derek.” 

“Aren’t you a sneaky little bastard?”

“I’m not Scott,” Theo replied. “I knew you were going to try to kill him one way or the other. You couldn’t help but resent that he had the authority and respect that you believe should have been yours. I’ve been telling Scott that from the day you proposed this.”

“And yet he came. Do you really think Scott’s going to make me leave my home?”

“No, he won’t. In fact, Scott would have volunteered to be the bait if you had asked him. He would die to protect his pack and his friends, to protect those he cares about, from the people who would hurt them. But that’s where you made your mistake. Because me? I’ll kill to protect him.” 

“I’m still not particularly scared of you.”

“Again, I’m not Scott. I don’t particularly care what happens to you, so not only will I tell every member of the pack, not only will I tell the law, not only will I tell what remains of your family, I will tell every single alpha we’ve met since this whole project started. Where will you go then, omega?”

Various emotions passed over Peter’s face, but then he simply nodded. Say what you will about Peter, and Theo would, but he knew when to pick his battles. 

“How much time do I have?”

“A week.”

“Fine.” Peter pulled out his phone. “I’ll go without fuss, but only until he calls me back. And he will call me back.”

“Deal.” Theo would never allow that to happen. Scott was his now, and Peter, at least, would never get close enough to try again.

**~*~**

It was after ten when they got home. Peter dropped them off without a word, without even meeting Theo’s gaze. The crescent moon hung low in the sky, creeping like a talentless rogue through the clouds over the Preserve. Theo stared at the neighborhood. He knew it, he had studied it, but coming here this time felt different. It was more than a destination. It felt like home.

“Oh.” Scott exclaimed as he opened the door to his house and stepped inside. 

“Is something wrong?” Theo put his suitcases down next to Scott’s in the foyer.

“The house has been closed up for so long. It’s really musty.”

Theo sniffed; Scott was right. Liam had been lazy. He had asked the beta to come by periodically, check the mail, and open up the house. By the stacks of mail on the kitchen table, Liam had done at least half of what he had been asked. Theo would have to tease him. 

“Can you get the windows down here?” It was now May, warm during the day and breezy at night. They could get rid of the unfamiliar smell quickly enough. “I’ll get the ones upstairs.”

Scott grunted and headed into the living room. 

Theo took a moment to check out everything in the second floor, looking for signs that someone had been in there: disturbed dust, doors closed or open when they shouldn’t be, or anything out of place. He had been trained to notice such things, but in this case, his precautions were unnecessary. This part of the house, at least, had been untouched. He opened the windows in his bedroom, Scott’s, and the master bedroom and then went downstairs.

“Do you want a beer?” Scott called out from the kitchen.

“Why do you have beer? You’re underage.”

“It was already in the fridge.”

Theo winced, because that meant it had been Melissa’s. “Sure, I’ll take one.” He recovered quickly just to move past the awkwardness. He walked into the kitchen, where Scott stood next to a counter on which sat two bottles. 

He was rubbing his finger over the label. “Should we get a new house?” 

“What?” Theo paused. The question didn’t make any sense. 

Scott picked up one of the beers and walked toward the sound of Theo’s voice. He barely avoided one of the chairs around the kitchen table. “Should we get a new house?”

“Uh. You’re asking me?”

“Of course. You’re still going to live with me, aren’t you? I’ve come a long way, but I’m still not able to read or move quickly across the living room. You don’t have to stay—”

“That’s not what I meant.” Theo said quickly. 

“What did you mean?”

Theo took the beer from Scott. “I meant, why would you ask me my opinion on that?”

Scott seemed a bit lost. “Because you’re going to be living with me?” He repeated slowly.

Silence reigned. Even though there was no scent of rain, it felt like a thunderstorm was about to hit.

“You don’t consider yourself my … servant or something, do you?”

Theo thought deflection was the best tactic. “It’s your house. You’re the alpha.”

Pausing, Scott took a sip of his beer. “I’m not like that. Whatever gave you the idea that I would try to run what we have unilaterally? What would make you think that I would even want to?”

“I … I guess I don’t know what we are.”

“We’re friends. We’re dating.” Scott shrugged. “You’re pack, if you want to be.”

“Stiles isn’t going to like that.”

“Stiles wanted me to kill Derek once upon a time, but you see how that turned out. Stiles’s emotional, but he’s not unreasonable. If I’m okay with it, he’ll be okay with it sooner or later. Lydia and Malia will make you pay, but eventually they will accept it.”

Theo snorted. They would definitely would make him pay. “People will call you naive.”

Scott laughed. 

“People will say that you’re a hypocrite.”

“How?”

“Peter—”

“Peter’s had his chance. He had two chances, and he still treated me with contempt. Technically, three chances, since he tried to kill me in Colorado.”

Theo choked on his beer. “You knew?”

“It wasn’t hard to figure out. Well, it didn’t seem to be hard for you to figure out, and once I noticed you were more pissed at Peter than usual, I tried to figure out why. But that’s water under the bridge.” 

“Scott—”

“No, we’re not doing this. I don’t want to talk about him. I want to talk about us. And I want to know — do you want to get a new house?”

“I like this house because it’s your house. I know there are bad memories here, but that doesn’t bother me. I’m used to living in places with lots of bad memories. So I only care if you care. Do you?”

Scott felt his way over to the kitchen table and sat down. “I don’t know.”

“There’s a lot to be said as you’re learning to live with your blindness about being in a place you know. And, soon you’ll own this house outright, and that’s important financially. It also has supernatural defenses, though they aren’t proof against everyone.” 

Theo walked over and sat down next to Scott, whose head was bowed in thought. He wished he could say something or knew some trick to make the decision easy, but there was no possible strategy to grapple with the past. Scott had to solve this by himself. Everyone did.

“My mom worked double shifts for years to be able to afford it. Almost every memory I have of her occurs in this house. I have so many memories of Stiles in my bedroom that I can’t keep them all straight. It was only for a little while, but when Isaac lived here it was like having another brother.”

“There are bad memories, too.”

“Yeah. You know, did I ever tell you about the time when the nogitsune had possessed Stiles and then tortured me with a ninja-to?” 

“Uhm.”

“There was the time that Derek slashed me up and stepped on my chest hard enough I coughed up blood.”

Theo didn’t know what to say.

“There was that time that Allison stunned me with an exploding arrow, and there was a time when a hallucination of Kira stabbed me through the back with her magic belt-sword.”

“So you’re saying that the good outweighs the bad?”

“Not really. I’m saying that everything has good and bad. We have to learn from what happened, but we have to move on. I’ve done it before. I love Stiles, and Derek, and Kira. I loved Allison, and I loved my mother. I even cared for my dad. Wait. Scratch that. I still love them, I’m just not going to see them for a long time. It’s what comes next that’s important. Whether it’s with the house …” Scott reached out and touched his cheek. “Or with you.”

“Fuck, you are the cheesiest son-of-a-bitch I’ve ever met.”

“It’s a gift.” Scott smiled. 

“Then to answer your questions, I don’t think you should get rid of the house. I think we should stay here.”

Scott hummed and sipped on the beer. “I do wish we could feel this. I’d like to get drunk with you.”

“Is it … that cool?”

“I only got drunk once, and that was with Stiles before all this stuff began. People wonder how I put up with him—”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

Scott stuck out his tongue. “It’s because I understand him. Most of the time, it’s just … well, Stiles never comes out and tells you how he’s feeling. He keeps it a mystery. I think he does it because of the way his mother died and … it doesn’t matter. The point is, Stiles doesn’t tell you what he’s feeling often.”

“Okay.”

“He did that time when we were drunk.” Scott said. “And the other time when he was drunk by himself, but I was too fucked up by the moon to really hear him. I always had … I could tell what was going on, but only when he was drunk did he really open up to me. The walls are too thick.”

Theo sipped his beer again. He’d read the psychological profile.

“I want to hear you when your walls are down.”

“I …”

“I want you to tell me everything.” Scott cocked his head as if a memory had occurred to him. He turned his head away, but Theo could still see the tears form in his eyes. “Tell me anything and everything you want. I want to hear the words. I want to hear you say them and then say them again.”

Theo bit his lip. “What if I don’t have anything to say?”

“You do.”

“What if you don’t like it?”

Scott smiled. “Then I’ll like that you trusted me enough to say them.”

“I want to keep my own room.” Theo said. “The last few months, we’ve slept in the same bed every night. But I want to keep my own room.”

“Okay.”

“It’s not that I don’t like sleeping with you, but I … giving up my room is a big step, and we skipped a lot of the little steps. I want those little steps.”

Scott tilted his head to the other side. “You want to go on a real date.”

“Dates. _Dates,_ Scott. I want to go to concerts. I want to go to dancing. I want to go to clubs. I want to go to cities to which I’ve never been. I put all of the things other kids do away to get what I thought I wanted. I don’t want that anymore, so I want those things back.”

“Okay. Yes.”

“And I want my own room. Because it will be a real room this time, and not a fake room for a fake identity. I probably won’t sleep in it that much.”

Scott blushed, because he was stupid like that. 

“But sometimes I’ll want to sleep alone. Do you want to hear more?”

“Yeah.” Scott nodded. “Tell me all of it.”

“I want a Halloween with enough candy that I get sick. And I want a Christmas like I see in those old movies. And I want to find out if we can’t actually get drunk on New Year’s Eve if we drink hundreds of dollars’ worth of booze. But there’s more. I want to get mad at you. I want to be lazy. And I don’t want to worry about getting hurt or thrown away if I do something wrong.”

Scott leaned over and kissed him. “How about I kiss you when you’re bad?”

“You can get mad at me.” Theo whispered. “I want you to get mad at me. But kissing’s good, too.”

Standing up, Scott extended his hand in an invitation. Theo took his hand and the alpha easily pulled him up. They walked through the McCall house, dark yet no longer empty. He was pulled along, but to tell the truth, he didn’t fight much. Scott got to the stairs and took a step up. Then he stopped.

“What’s wrong?”

Scott’s voice was hesitant. Quiet. “I don’t know if this will hurt, but I remembered something.” Theo squeezed his hand. “It hurt you because you weren’t … I could hear it in your voice. Do you want the Bite? Do you want to be a real werewolf?”

“Nah.” It came out of Theo’s mouth so quickly he didn’t even think about the answer. “I’ll settle for being a real boy.”

Scott pressed him to the wall with his body, his mouth finding his neck, his hands grabbing his hips, pulling him close. He let his head fall back, where it tapped lightly on the wall. 

They went up the stairs slowly because it's a difficult when pressed so closely together. Scott opened the door to his bedroom even while he was kissing him so hard that Theo couldn’t breathe. 

“I want something else.” Theo stood in the doorway, breathing heavily. 

“What do you want?” Scott trailed one hand across his face.

“I want us to go somewhere. Somewhere all the bad things that’s happened to us and all the bad things that we did are in the past where they belong. Where we don’t have to pay for the ambitions of Peter, or hunters, or demons, or Doctors. Somewhere where we never have to worry about any of that ever again.”

“I don’t think we can go that far, Theo.”

“We can try, if we really want to. We’ll leave the solar system if we have to. We’ll be in interstellar space, where everything is new.”

Scott pulled him into the room. “Okay, Theo. We’ll try.” The door shut behind them.

**Author's Note:**

> I welcome all criticism as long as it is focused on the characters, plot, cultural sensitivity, and writing of this story. Please don't bring in my other works or commentary on other platforms into this. I especially appreciate having typos and grammatical mistakes pointed out.


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